neighbor
by cithrin
Summary: Julia's new neighbor is a strange and terrifying puzzle. Set a couple of years before TDK. Joker/OC.
1. Chapter 1

1.

The man who had moved in the apartment above mine was Mrs. Patrick's new project.

"His name is Jack. I think he served in Iraq," she told me in confidence one evening, while I was helping her unpack the groceries. "I mean, maybe it was Afghanistan, but one of those places. I know, because I was getting my mail downstairs and his box was full of army pay checks. I noticed the stamps."

I wondered if she snooped through my mail. She probably did. I didn't mind, since you couldn't find anything interesting there.

"He just has that soldier look, you know? Crew cut and stiff posture. And have you seen his _scars_?" she asked, drawing out the word dramatically.

I _had_ noticed that something was wrong with his face, but we only ever intercepted each other on the stairs (elevator was broke) and I didn't get a good look.

"I just think it's really sad he's so lonely. I never see any family coming to visit him. No wife either, and he's not that young. Do you think she left him because of the scars?"

I shrugged, not willing to speculate. Mrs. Patrick meant well; she just didn't have a filter.

"You should say hi to him sometimes, Julia. Maybe he'd like some company."

I doubted that. The man mostly kept to himself and wore hoodies and scarves to cover himself up. He didn't look like a talker. If he really was an ex-soldier, he had probably seen some bad stuff on the front line and he was dealing with that. Maybe.

But I knew that if I didn't try to be "friendly", Mrs. Patrick would. As the landlady of the place, she took it upon herself to welcome every tenant to our little community. If you didn't know Mrs. Patrick upfront, you might get some strange ideas about her. I could picture her knocking on the army guy's door with a saran-wrapped Viennese fried chicken (her specialty), expecting to be invited in and buttered up. And I could also picture her face when he slammed the door in her face.

So I offered to take the chicken for her. I'd done this before with the pianist on the fifth floor. She was a 40-something woman with some serious agoraphobia. We had all kinds here.

Friday afternoon, I took the saran-wrapped Viennese fried chicken and knocked on his door.

There was no answer for a while, although I did hear feet shuffling. He must have dropped something on the floor, because I heard him curse hoarsely. When he finally opened the door, I got a faint smell of liquor from him. He didn't look drunk, though. He just looked spaced out. He was wearing a hoodie and some run-down slacks that had seen better days. His mouth was set in a hard line, but his expression was fuzzy, mainly because of the scars. I couldn't really describe them. It was as if someone had taken a pair of scissors to his mouth. It was _horrible_. I couldn't imagine what or who had done that. I shuddered, which I think he caught. He didn't say anything. He waited for me to do the talking.

"Hi. I'm Julia from downstairs... Listen, you don't want this chicken, do you?"

He glanced down at the saran-wrapped bulge in my hands with something like disgust. Fair enough.

"It's from Mrs. Patrick, the landlady."

He nodded with an angry twitch of his mouth. Like I said, Mrs. Patrick was an acquired taste.

"Okay, well, if she catches you on the stairs, she'll ask about the chicken. So you could just tell her you got it and it was great."

He looked at me like he didn't understand what I was going on about. I sighed.

" _I_ 'll be taking the chicken instead, but you tell her _you_ got it. Catch my drift?"

The man finally nodded in comprehension. His mouth looked less angry.

"Thanks," I said, feeling kind of dumb. I was doing _him_ a favor, after all. "I mean, unless you wanna share the chicken…"

He was already closing the door in my face. Good enough. It's not like I wanted further contact.

I took the Viennese fried chicken down to my flat and tried not to think about those ugly scars.

* * *

I was going to drop out of night classes. It was only logical. I already worked full-time and I was way behind on my assignments. I'd received several angry emails from my professors. It was time to quit. You didn't need extra knowledge to work in a department store. I didn't yearn for the college experience. I couldn't afford it either. I'd graduated high school four years ago, and I was doing fine by my standards.

Sometimes I ran into old classmates and had to make awkward conversation about our current lives. Those always left a bad taste in my mouth.

Last week, one of the more popular girls in my class found her way to the jewelry counter, and there I was, promoting our new spring line. She just stared at me like I was a ghost, like she couldn't believe I was still alive.

" _Julia_? Is that you? It's me, Cara, from Gotham High?"

I couldn't pretend I didn't recognize her. I smiled stiffly. "Hey, Cara. Nice to see you."

It _wasn't_. She kept me up for twenty minutes talking about her internship at a law firm and her new boyfriend who was apparently loaded and drove a Bugatti.

"Actually, that's why I'm here. I want to pick up something classy for his mom's birthday. She absolutely _adores_ me, and I don't want to disappoint her."

I was relieved she actually wanted to buy something. My boss was already giving me pointed looks.

I began ranting off the script I knew by heart, showing her our best sells, our special Easter offer and our discounts.

"The spring collection is the newest stuff from Milan. Very high-class."

She didn't really believe me, but she made a good effort. She left with a pricey 24 carat bracelet, insisting that we should catch up one day. I wanted to laugh. Cara Grant was way above my league. She was gorgeous, in that jaw-dropping kind of way and she was pretty successful. I was neither, so it would be kind of silly to see us getting coffee together.

I don't want to sound like a pity party. I was relatively at peace with myself. I was decent-looking. I had a pretty good brain when I paid attention. But I wasn't delusional. I belonged here, behind the counter.

* * *

I saw him again a few days later when I went out to take the trash. He was coming up from the Laundromat carrying a small basket. He wore the same hoodie drawn over his head, but a different pair of slacks. I don't know why I noticed these things. Probably because I worked in a department store.

I wasn't going to say hi, but as he climbed up ahead of me, I saw his hands were shaking badly. In a fraction, I realized that his basket was going to fall and his clean clothes would get dirty.

"Watch out." I lunged forward and grabbed the basket for him.

It was half a second, maybe less, but he reacted almost without pause. My back hit the wall with a painful thud. His elbow was lodged firmly in my neck. I was too shocked to even react. My breath was coming up short. I saw dark spots before my eyes.

"Shit," I heard him expel. His face was close enough that I could see his mangled scars again. I closed my eyes.

He stepped back, releasing me. I hadn't realized how strong his grip was, because I almost fell to my knees.

"Sorry. Old habits," he muttered, picking up his basket.

I was shaking a bit, which was embarrassing. He'd startled me. But _I_ had startled him.

Never sneak up on an ex-soldier, was the lesson.

"Leave the bag," he said, making me jump. _Get a grip, Julia._

"What?"

He nodded his chin towards the garbage bag in my head.

"I'll take it out for you."

I was going to protest, but he gave me a look that said maybe I should just be on my way. This was his way of apologizing.

Back in my apartment, I bolted the door and leaned against it for a while. I hadn't been scared like that in a while. It was kind of silly. I felt sorry for him, in a way. He must've gone through some serious shit if that was how he reacted on a daily basis. I went into the kitchen, grabbed a beer from the fridge, and took a large gulp.

For Mrs. Patrick's sake, I hoped she'd lose interest in him.

* * *

 _Hi. I know there are probably many stories with a similar premise, but I wanted to try my own version. Hope you liked it!_


	2. Chapter 2

2.

I had just got home from work, ready to gorge on some cheap Thai takeout, when I got a call from mom. It was, predictably, about money. She'd already plowed through the cash I'd sent her two weeks ago. She was polite enough not to say she drank it all; she said she bought a microwave.

"You know, I shouldn't cook with my bad hands anyway."

Mom insisted she had arthritis, although most doctors had agreed her hands shook from one too many bottles of gin.

"You'll have to wait until next month for more money, Mom. I'm kind of out right now."

"Oh, sure. You live in that fancy city and eat out every day, I bet, but you don't have something to spare for your Ma."

I wanted to laugh at how patently false her vision of me was. The last time I ate out was when my boss offered to take a few of us out to dinner since it was her birthday and she was turning 40. The rest of the time, I got by with cheap takeout and macaroni and cheese. But I didn't bother to tell her any of this. With mom, I'd learned that the best retort was silence. Let her have her little monologue and move on.

A few minutes later, she was done.

"Well, call me next month," she said tersely and hung up. _Call me next month_ was code for _Send more money_.

The phone call left me with little to no appetite, but I sat down at my kitchen island (which also served as a dining room area) and dug into my pork soup while poring over some articles online. There was some buzz about Wayne Enterprises. I'd seen the big Wayne Tower in the middle of the city when I'd first come to Gotham. It was pretty impressive, as skyscrapers went. Apparently, the playboy heir of the company had returned to take control of the business after a long leave of absence. There was a photo of him sitting at a table in a deluxe restaurant with a gorgeous redhead at his side. She was hanging onto his every word, leaning forward intently, but he didn't seem to notice. He was handsome, in the traditional sense of the word, although there was something really empty about his eyes, almost like he was immune to the world around him. I'd seen that look in my mother's eyes; it only spelled trouble.

For some reason, I imagined him alone in a room filled with expensive furniture and all sorts of precious commodities that he didn't need. I imagined him walking to a tall window that overlooked the city line, I imagined him opening the window and climbing up –

 _Jesus, Julia._

I'd just pictured…what was his name? I'd just pictured Bruce Wayne committing suicide. Sometimes I spooked myself.

* * *

The sounds didn't wake me at first. I'd fallen into a deep sleep since I'd had a rough time at work shelving the new hairline products, and tomorrow was going to be no piece of cake either. I had storage duty from 8 o'clock on the dot, and I really _hated_ storage duty, because it was demanding on my back and the backrooms were stuffy and full of dust mites.

I tried to ignore the noise, until I heard a loud bang, then a piercing sound like nails scratching on blackboard, and finally a heavy thud which scared me half to death. _Something_ was going on upstairs.

I looked at my bedside clock. It was 2 AM in the morning.

I picked up the mop I kept behind the bathroom door and tapped the ceiling in a "disgruntled neighbor" kind of fashion, but the noise didn't stop. It sounded like someone was hauling furniture across the room, or crawling on the floor with weights tied around their ankles.

I soon realized I'd have to go up there and bang on his door. Not a very enticing prospect. The last time I saw him, he almost knocked the breath out of me when he stuck an elbow in my throat.

But I had to get my sleep or I'd crash.

I dragged my reluctant body up the stairs, determined not to be frightened or intimidated. It was my right to ask for peace and quiet. I wasn't going to chicken out.

But when I got there, I saw that the front door was slightly ajar.

I gulped. Had he forgotten to lock, or…?

The smart thing would have been to knock and call for him, but for some reason, I decided to push the door further open and step inside. People on my block used to say I was a curious kid because I always wanted to get inside this abandoned old warehouse that was padded and locked. But here, the door had been open. It wasn't my fault.

"Hello?" I called out, trying to make my way through the dark. I saw a dim light at the end of the corridor. "Hello?"

My foot stepped on something sharp and there was a sickening crunch under my sole. I was wearing my thin house slippers and a searing pain shot up my leg as I realized that I had cut myself.

I looked down and noticed there was glass strewn all over the floor. Long shards of glass, glimmering like diamonds.

" _What the hell are you doing?"_

"Jesus!" I jumped.

My neighbor was standing by the open door. I couldn't see his face that far away, or his scars, but I could feel his glare on my back.

"I'm sorry, but you were making a lot of noise and I came up to see what was going on and your door was open –"

"It wasn't open. I went down to take some trash."

 _Shit_. So he'd just gone out for a second. That still didn't explain the noise.

"Look, I didn't mean to barge in, but I've got an early shift tomorrow so I need –" my words were cut off by the intense pain shooting up my leg. _Damn_ , I'd gotten cut real bad.

I winced and tried to raise my foot to see the damage, but I stumbled and had to grip the wall for support.

Suddenly, he was walking towards me _fast_ and I was afraid he'd try to hurt me. I didn't have a weapon on me - shit, I didn't think I'd need one. I just wanted to be back in my warm bed, screw his noise, but he stopped in front of me, his expression unreadable, and he looked me over as if I was some vermin he'd found under the kitchen sink. It was strange staring into his eyes, because the black seemed to take over his pupils until there was no white left.

I nearly fell over when he crouched down before me. He gripped my ankle. His fingers were rough and calloused. He raised my foot and removed the slipper. I gasped.

"This is going to get infected," he spoke remotely. He didn't seem to care one way or another.

I saw the black blood in the dim light. It was rushing down his fingers, pooling into his palm. I felt sick to my stomach.

"Have to go to a hospital," I mumbled, not sure if I could manage full sentences right now.

He gripped my ankle and shook his head. "No need."

.

* * *

Later I'd remember some awkward movements between us. He let me lean on his shoulder while I hopped over to his couch. He didn't smell of liquor tonight, he didn't smell of anything. His muscles were tense and wiry under his shirt, like he had too much pent-up energy that he didn't know how to release.

I don't know if he put me down himself, because next thing I knew, I found my leg propped up on a tall chair and my eyes were looking at his cracked ceiling. He was coming in and out of the room quickly.

I wanted to ask him something – _where did that glass come from?_ – but I was too tired. If not for the pain, I felt I could fall asleep.

"Stay awake."

His voice had a soft, hoarse quality to it, like he didn't use it a lot and it got rusty with disuse.

"I _am_ awake. What are you doing?"

"I'm gonna clean the wound and stitch it up. And you're not gonna make a sound. Here."

He threw a pillow in my arms. "Bite down on that."

I wanted to pull my leg away and tell him to stop, but he closed his fingers round my ankle again.

"Don't test me."

My eyes widened in shock. _Don't test me?_ Who the hell did he think he was? Soldier or not, I wasn't going to stand here and be stitched by some weirdo. I'd have to be insane.

"I'm not doing this, I want to go to the hospital!"

"You can't walk," he said gruffly.

"Then call an ambulance!"

"…no."

I couldn't believe this. And of course I hadn't brought my phone with me.

"Why don't you want to call –"

But then it hit me. The glass on the floor, the thuds, the bangs… something had been broken here and he didn't want anyone else seeing it.

I was getting really freaked out, but his voice pulled me out of my thoughts.

"Hold still. This is gonna sting."


	3. Chapter 3

3.

I woke up with a jolt. I didn't even realize I'd fallen asleep. It felt like days had gone by...but I was still staring at the same cracked ceiling. I was lying on the same couch. A couch that wasn't mine.

When I lowered my head, I saw him sitting in the armchair across from me.

I almost wanted to scream, but as my eyes adjusted to the dark, I noticed his own eyes were closed and he was breathing softly. His head was tilted back. He was asleep.

It was unnerving, how different he looked. His face was relaxed, and his scars looked more like age wrinkles. As if he were an old grandfather who'd fallen asleep in front of the TV.

I wondered why he'd sat up with me instead of going to bed...

And then it slowly came back to me. I'd hurt myself pretty bad.

 _Shit._

I finally looked down at my foot. It was stiff and sore, but my whole body felt the strain of lying in the same position for hours. At least, I _thought_ it was hours. I carefully bent forward, suppressing a groan. I lifted my leg up and looked at the long, jagged scar that now graced half of my foot. It looked slightly grotesque in the dark...but it was clean. No signs of blood. The stitches glinted like the scales of an insect. He had done a pretty good job, from what I could tell. It was still weird, though.

I tried to stand up on both feet, but the wound still stung. I had to hop on one leg to take a few steps, but I was okay. And I had him to thank for it, one way or another.

I hopped to the window and pulled back an inch of his heavy curtains. It was close to dawn judging from my experience with sunrises. I always got up before everyone else. The sky had that pink edge to it, like cotton candy. When I looked over my shoulder, I saw that the square of light had fallen on his face. Now the scars looked like they'd been drawn by a little kid, all messy and raw. It was captivating how quickly his scars changed in texture. I tried to picture his face without them, but I couldn't. They seemed ingrained in him, like those carvings found in old caves.

I let the curtain fall back and realized I _badly_ needed to pee. I debated for a few moments whether I should use his bathroom or just sneak out of his apartment like a normal person, but I didn't think I was going to last the journey down the stairs, so I silently hopped my way to the hall. He had removed all the glass from the floor, but I still leaned against the wall and avoided stepping on anything.

When I reached the bathroom and turned on the light, I was…underwhelmed. I don't know what I had expected. Heroin syringes? Scattered bottles of pills? It was neat and clean and it smelled _nice_. Like air freshener and soap. There was even a fluffy mat in front of the toilet seat.

But there was one glaring hole in the wall, one telltale sign that not everything was smart and tidy.

The mirror was missing. Or rather, the glass was. The frame was still there. But there were tiny shards dotting the rim.

I realized, then, that I had cut myself on _that_ mirror.

I tried to imagine what had made him do it. It must have been too hard to look at himself every morning. He'd once been a regular guy, maybe even handsome...now you couldn't look him straight in the face. _He_ couldn't either, it seemed. I doubted, though, that this was about vanity. The brief psychology course I had enrolled for at night school talked about "externalizing" and "internalizing" the self. Jack, if that was his name, had internalized those scars. He couldn't just treat them like a normal disfigurement or blemish. For him, the scars were expressions of who he _really_ was deep down.

Or maybe this was all bogus. That psychology professor _had_ had a habit of talking out of his ass.

I shook my head. _Why_ was I even thinking about this? I'd just come in here to pee. It was none of my business if he broke his stuff. It was not my responsibility to care about his mental welfare. And I didn't care.

But I did feel a small twinge. He _had_ stitched my foot …he'd scared me half to death, but then again, I'd barged in on him… but he _had_ been making a lot of noise. I heaved a sigh. The argument was circular and pointless. I supposed the fact that he'd stayed up in that armchair with me was not something a creep would do. Or was it? I didn't know. I couldn't figure out his behavior.

Bottom line, my foot was still in one piece and he deserved _some_ kind of thanks.

As I washed my hands in front of the non-existent mirror, I wondered what I could do to let him know I was grateful. I didn't want to wake him. Honestly, I was afraid it would be incredibly awkward and we'd have nothing to say to each other. I thought of leaving him a note. But what would I say? _Dear neighbor, thanks a bunch_? We didn't have that kind of familiarity.

As I walked out the bathroom, I saw that his kitchen door was open. Smart guy, he'd erected two walls around his kitchen island.

I was hit by a sudden bout of inspiration. I'd make him a cup of coffee and just leave it next to his armchair. Then I'd slip out unnoticed. When he woke up, he'd see the cup and he'd figure out it was me who'd provided that small kindness.

Relieved to have something to do, I stepped into the kitchen.

By now I felt pretty weird. I'd seen a good chunk of this guy's apartment. The only thing missing was the bedroom.

I tried not to inspect his cupboards like some nosy maid. I couldn't find any coffee though. I found some bags of mint tea. I couldn't really associate something like mint with him. He seemed too severe for that, but who was I to judge? People took one look at me and wondered if I could read. Having the surname Florres certainly didn't help. I was taken for a lazy immigrant more times than I can count.

So I reached for his kettle and filled it with water. For a while, I lost myself in these simple preparations. My mind wandered to what I'd be doing later that day. Definitely get a few hours off work to go to the hospital. Then maybe buy some groceries and painkillers…

This time he didn't announce himself. I turned around with a steaming mug in my hand and almost spilled it on me. Quick reflexes saved me, but I cursed out loud.

"Jesus Christ!"

He was leaning against the door frame, watching me intently. His eyes were more suspicious than hostile. But I wasn't scared of him this time around. His body language didn't show strong animosity.

"What's that?" he asked hoarsely, nudging his chin towards the mug.

"For my foot," I blurted out.

Then I realized what I'd said. "I _mean_ , for you. I made you tea, as thanks for stitching my foot."

 _Ugh_. Could I sound any dumber?

"You made tea," he echoed soberly, although I could swear there was a tinge of dark humor in his voice.

He suddenly leaned forward and grabbed the mug from my hand.

"Careful, it's hot," I warned him, but it was too late. His palm encircled the sizzling ceramic like it was nothing. I thought he'd scald himself but he didn't even flinch. He raised the mug to his lips and he took a long swig. I blinked.

When he lowered the mug, I saw that his mouth was wet…and so were his scars. Tea had dribbled down his chin.

"My mouth doesn't work very well," he offered by way of explanation. He seemed to be challenging me to make a comment. I should have looked down then. Instead, I stared. And I noticed what I hadn't seen before. The corners of his mouth were… _missing_. Like some animal had bitten them off.

His tongue suddenly flashed out from the gaps in his mouth, licking his lips clean. My own mouth opened in fascination or disgust, I couldn't tell.

"Take a picture, it'll last longer," he drawled.

I blushed furiously. " _Sorry_. I didn't mean to."

His eyes were black and mean but also a little _wry_. He enjoyed watching me squirm. "Never seen anything like it, have you?"

He almost sounded _proud_. That seemed to contradict my previous guesses. Maybe he didn't hate his scars. Or maybe he did, and that's just how a hateful person would talk about them.

"No," I replied honestly.

Half of his distorted mouth lifted an inch. It almost looked like he was smirking…or grimacing. It could've been both.

"What happened last night after, you know…?" I asked, desperately wanting to change the subject.

"You passed out," he informed me coolly.

" _Oh_. Wow, I've never passed out before."

"You couldn't handle your pain," he said, and it sounded like an insult coming from his mouth.

"I shouldn't have to handle pain," I replied defensively. "You should've called an ambulance." I knew why he hadn't, but I wanted to have my say.

"Real world doesn't work that way," he countered obliquely, swallowing the rest of the tea. "Pain is, uh, inevitable. Sometimes even necessary."

His tone suggested that he was above it all. I didn't buy it. In fact, I wished I could throw in his face that I'd hurt myself _precisely_ because he couldn't handle his pain. But I kept quiet. Tea was still dribbling down his chin.

And then I remembered something.

"You know…Mrs. Patrick sometimes does routine checks on the apartments. She's got spare keys."

He walked over to the sink and deposited the mug there. "Paranoid broad."

I would have chuckled under different circumstances to hear him use such colorful language, but I refused to be distracted. "Yeah, well, she'll notice…she'll look into the bathroom."

Jack turned around and weighed me down with a scalding stare. "What will she notice?"

"Something missing."

He rested his back against the sink, fingers gripping the counter. "That's none of her business, or yours."

"Was that mirror there when you rented the place? I'm betting it was. Which means it is her business after all."

I'd taken on my "difficult customer" tone with him because it usually worked. People wanted to be talked into good manners.

"I'll replace it," he muttered noncommittally.

"You should do it before she sees it's…" _Broken_. "missing. Because you'll get in trouble otherwise."

"I'll be fine," he replied dryly. "Don't you worry your pretty head."

I flushed angrily. _Pretty head_. He'd delivered the words like I was some kind of naive little puppy. I was just being a responsible neighbor, letting him know upfront about the risks he was running. I felt humiliated and taken for granted. Yeah, he'd stitched me, but he hadn't said sorry for disturbing me last night, he hadn't thanked me for the tea and he mocked or ignored my well-meaning remarks. Maybe I was expecting too much, but I wanted some respect.

"If you really _were_ fine, you wouldn't have destroyed private property," I retorted, relishing the dark flicker that crossed his face.

"I think you overstayed your welcome," he drawled angrily.

"Oh, don't worry, you never welcomed me."

He threw me a withering glare. I saw the way his muscles tensed under his shirt, like they were springs ready to burst apart. One part of me wanted to fight him, the other part was asking _why_ I was even picking up a fight. I didn't know him. I shouldn't have goaded him. I started stumbling towards the hallway. I looked ridiculous, hopping on one foot. But he didn't offer me any help. He was mad. I knew I'd hit a sensitive spot.

When I reached the door, I turned towards him. He was at the other end of the hallway.

"Look, I…"

I scrambled for something to say. I didn't want to leave things on such a bad note. I wanted to be the bigger person, the person who could maturely extend an olive branch. We lived in the same building. Running into each other was inevitable.

"I happen to work in a big department store. Maybe you've heard of it? It's called _Gracie's_? It's two subway stations away from here. We've got pretty good deals on mirrors. Just letting you know."

At first he didn't react. And then he suddenly dashed into the bedroom behind him without so much as a word. I blinked mystified. Had I made it _worse_? I was just trying to be civil…Guess I shouldn't have bothered.

But he came out again quickly and this time he strolled right towards me with purpose. Oh _hell_ , was he trying to intimidate me again?

But when he came up to me, he simply took out several crumpled dollars from his pocket and slammed them into my palm.

"Here. This should be enough."

I stared at the money like it was some kind of alien device. "What –"

"For the mirror."

I looked up at him, baffled. "You want _me_ to buy the mirror for you?"

"Your tea was shit. This is how you, uh, repay me."

My jaw fell open. I _couldn't_ believe what he'd just said. I'd received some unsavory comments from unhappy customers in the past, but no one had ever talked to me this way. I wanted to throw the money in his face. My rage was showing on my face, because half of his mouth lifted up again smugly. He reached out and closed my fist around his money.

"Bring it tonight, eight o'clock."

Before I could form any kind of angry refusal, he shoved me out the apartment and closed the door behind him.

I was too shocked to even remember that my foot still hurt.

* * *

 _Thank you for your reviews, I hope you liked it!_


	4. Chapter 4

4.

The nurse at the hospital told me that my foot had been stitched by a medically-trained hand. I lied to her and told her my neighbor was a doctor. She said I'd been lucky. She cleaned me up and gave me new stitches and the doctor in the ER prescribed some antibiotic ointment to prevent infection. And that was that, I was free to go. I didn't mind that I'd made the trip, but I was surprised Jack had been so good. Maybe he _was_ an army doctor. That didn't make him any less _weird_ , but it made me feel better about the rude confrontation earlier today.

I returned to work with a lot on my mind. I still had to buy him a mirror. I still had to interact with him, which didn't bother me that much, but it made me anxious. I counted down the minutes until my lunch break, when I could go browse the homeware section.

There were many pretty models on display. Some mirrors had simple colored-tile frames, others were wrought with delicate leaves and flowers, others were dotted with glittery stars and hearts. I chuckled to myself at the thought of getting him a Winnie the Pooh mirror.

I knew what he needed, though.

I headed for the plastic aisle. Plastic mirrors were basically acrylic sheets, but they wouldn't break if broken. They wouldn't cut anyone's leg.

The cash he'd given me could buy at least four of them. I felt weird giving him back all that money. So I dodged into a doodads shop and also got him a stress ball. I don't know why. I guess I thought, next time he goes into rage-mode or whatever that was, he could squeeze this yellow ball instead of breaking stuff.

When I returned to my counter for my afternoon shift, I stuffed my purchases in one of the drawers and tried to look busy. Imagine my surprise when I looked up and saw Cara Grant in the jewelry section yet again. This time she wasn't alone. She had her hand wrapped around the arm of an important-looking man. He was wearing an expensive three-piece suit that could probably pay my rent for at least a year, and he looked as if everything around him was an insult to his sensibilities. I'd seen customers like that before, people who thought every moment spent in your company was a waste of their time. I steeled myself for an unpleasant interaction.

"Julia! It's me, Cara!"

I smiled obligingly. "Hello again."

"I'd like you to meet my boyfriend, Charles Goodwin. You know the Archie Goodwin International Airport? That was his grandfather."

"Oh, nice to meet you," I said awkwardly. Charles Goodwin grunted, clearly uncomfortable himself, but in a more "why must I talk to the rabble" kind of way.

"Babe, Julia was my high-school classmate. She's the one who recommended that pretty bracelet I got for your mom," Cara explained, running her hand up and down his arm.

"It was elegant," Charles acquiesced.

"I guess I should tell you why we're here," she continued, eyes aglow with excitement. "Charlie proposed! So I should say he's my fiancé now. We've come to shop for a ring!"

Charles cleared his throat. "I know she makes a fuss about size and stone. It's better to make the purchase in person."

A true romantic, this one. But I was confused. Why come to _Gracie's_ to buy a ring? If this guy was loaded, there were other high-end stores for that kind of thing. _Tiffany's_ and such.

"Normally, Charlie's all about the most expensive items," Cara helpfully pitched in. "But I'm a simple kind of girl and I don't want him to spend a lot on me. Plus, I get to help an old friend too, so it's like shooting two birds with one stone, right?"

I smiled a brittle smile. So, she had chosen _Gracie's_ to "help me". How kind of her. I'm sure her boyfriend getting her a 900-dollar ring would help pay my bills. I wanted to reach for the stress ball under the counter and squeeze it hard.

Instead, I took out our diamond rings display and went through the usual script.

In between, Cara told me they were honeymooning at the _Alhambra -_ whatever that was - and that the ceremony itself would take place at Gotham Cathedral and all the big celebrities and business luminaries would be present for the glamorous event.

"I mean, I guess there'll be some press too, but we're trying to avoid that."

I had to bite my tongue to prevent a sarcasm. Eventually, she chose a hefty Milgrain Marquise, rose-gold. I thought it was ugly as sin, but they both seemed pleased. The sale was made and they didn't have any reason to linger anymore. But Cara turned to me before leaving and said,

"You should definitely come to the wedding, Julia! I'll make sure to send you an invitation."

She didn't ask for my address or anything like that. She just offered this random and extremely unlikely invitation and left, arm in arm with her rich fiancé.

I grabbed the stress ball and crushed it between my fingers.

* * *

Later that evening, my spirits were pretty low. It wasn't just Cara's impromptu charity-shopping, it was the fact that everyone's life seemed to be going somewhere, except mine. I knew that was a false impression. I knew that no one had their shit figured out in their twenties and I knew I was lucky to have the little I did, because I saw kids on the street who would never get a decent job or hold down an apartment. Like I said, I was relatively at peace with myself. But it still riled me up that I was so close to abundance, yet so far away. It's like taking the train to work and seeing all the pricey neighborhoods just a few blocks away from your mouse-hole. At least if they kept us average mortals in a remote location, we might feel better. But we're all crammed together; the fortunate and the less so.

My neighbor stuck out like a sore thumb in this equation. He clearly had some money put aside for rainy days, and the military was probably paying him well. I mean, you don't just give someone a few extra 50s to buy you a mirror. So why didn't he find a nicer place to live?

I was still a bit sore about his demand to bring the mirror at eight o'clock, like I was some kind of postal delivery service, so I rang his doorbell at half-past.

"It's open," I heard him say from somewhere inside. He hadn't shouted, but his voice carried all the way to the door somehow.

I turned the knob warily. For all I knew, he could jump at me in anger again. But no, the hallway was empty. All the lights were turned on, however. A delicious smell of food wafted to me from the kitchen. It reminded me I had eaten next to nothing all day. My stomach rumbled unpleasantly.

"You can put the mirror in the bathroom," he instructed in the same neutral tone.

I frowned. What was I, his maid? He could set his own damn mirror. I marched towards the kitchen, ready to dump the shopping and the money in his lap, but I wasn't prepared for what I saw.

Jack, wearing a pristine white apron, standing in front of the stove, stirring a saucepan.

I lost my train of thought. I think I was also gaping. He looked, if possible, even weirder with the domestic get-up.

He turned his head towards me and raised an eyebrow. "I don't want to stain my clothes, do I?"

I nodded stupidly. My eyes darted around the kitchen, for want of something else to focus on, and I noticed he'd set two services on the table.

"How's your foot?"

I blanked for a moment before I remembered that yeah, he'd stitched me up. I couldn't believe that was only last night.

"It's fine. I um, I went to the ER. They said you did a good job."

"Of course I did," he replied, but he didn't sound smug or self-congratulatory. It was just a _fact_ to him.

"So," I said, trying to chase away the discomfort I was feeling, "let me show you what I got."

I took out the plastic mirror first, and held it up in front of him. Jack caught his reflection in the shiny surface and paused, setting the wooden spoon aside. I couldn't read his face – _shocker_ – but his reaction was not exactly contrary. He mostly looked unimpressed.

I bent the edges of the mirror towards me. "See? Flexible. You can't ever break this."

I think he stared at me for a good minute before he shrugged and said, "Let's set it up."

He walked past me towards the bathroom and, for lack of anything better to do, I followed him.

The mirror came with its own adhesive but Jack took out some additional superglue to help fasten it to the wall. I held the mirror still while he pressed down on the corners. He angled his arms above my head, and I kept my eyes low. I didn't want to accidentally stare at his scars. Our proximity did not really feel like proximity. He felt like he was miles away, like he was a remote being which had landed here by mistake.

When it was done, we both stared at our imperfect reflections. He looked tall and gaunt. I looked short and tired.

We both returned to the kitchen where I'd left my bag. I took out the hefty change and the yellow stress ball.

Jack knit his eyebrows in confusion. It was sort of satisfying to see him look lost.

"I thought, you know, if you ever need to crush something with your hands."

And I demonstrated for him by pressing both my palms against the yellow ball. It conflated back to its original form when I released it. I wish more things were like that; quick to recover.

His scars twitched and half his mouth seemed to quirk up, almost like he had a cigarette between his lips. He took the ball from my hands, but he didn't squeeze it. He just stared at it for a moment or two, letting its weight settle in his palms. He took note of its features with a keen eye. Like it was some kind of concealed device. I wondered, briefly, if he'd ever defused bombs in the army. After he was done, he put it on a high shelf above his head.

"You should keep the money," he said, off-hand.

I balked. "What? No, it's too much."

"It's not."

"It is," I insisted. "It's not right."

"I don't need it."

"Implying that I do?" I retorted, trying to keep my voice level and failing miserably. I'd had a bad day, I didn't need more evidence that I was a sore loser.

"You sound upset," he replied, turning back to his stove, and leaving me holding the dollars in my hand like an idiot.

I deposited them loudly on the fridge. "I'm not. Look, if there's nothing else –"

"Meatballs are almost ready. You should sit down."

 _Meatballs_. Of all the dishes he could be making, it was meatballs. Somehow, it was both hilarious and tragic.

"Um, thanks for the offer, but I'm not hungry."

My treacherous stomach chose that particular moment to start rumbling again. Jack said nothing, but I could tell he'd heard. In fact, I'm pretty sure the whole block could hear my noisy bowels. I admit, I didn't relish the prospect of opening my mostly empty fridge and scrounging up some edibles. And my very dignified self had just refused his money. I hesitated in the doorway.

"I sit on the left," he informed me casually, pouring something into a casserole.

How did he do it? How did he just say something innocuous like that and compel you to do what he wanted? Did they teach that in the army?

I fumbled awkwardly with my jacket and sat down in the chair opposite his.

I'd only now noticed he was straining some spaghetti in a colander. Spaghetti and meatballs. Amazing.

I literally couldn't believe it.

I should've offered to help, but I simply sat there, watching him pour the spaghetti in the casserole and then place the casserole on the table between us. I tried to remember the last time I'd eaten someone's cooking. Yeah, I couldn't.

Jack sat down, wiping his hands on his apron. "Help yourself."

I was pretty shy at first, but when I saw that he had already started eating, I scooped up some meatballs and pasta on my plate. I took some tentative bites. I chewed them. And then I stopped.

 _Holy shit._

This was, and I was not exaggerating, the _best_ meatball I had eaten in my life. Scratch that, this was the best cooked meat I'd ever eaten, full stop. I didn't realize I had voiced my compliments out loud, but hell, he deserved them. I couldn't believe something could taste _so_ good. Maybe my palate was rusty from all that cheap take-out, but this was heaven.

"Old recipe of mine," he explained, shoveling some spaghetti in his mouth. I did not detect any pride in his voice, but something about his tone was guarded, as if this was, after all, important to him. Bits of pasta slipped out of the hole in his mouth. I averted my eyes.

"Were you a cook?" I asked, taking another delicious bite.

"No, I'm just an amateur."

"Wow. Is there something you can't do?"

I didn't mean it to come out _that_ appreciative. But this guy was an amateur surgeon _and_ amateur cook. Meanwhile, I was an amateur nothing.

"Can't play chess," he supplied, unperturbed.

"You can't play chess."

"Never learned how. Do you know how to, uh, play?"

"Yes, I once beat the great Bobby Fischer himself," I said, rolling my eyes.

He didn't laugh.

We ate in silence, like two strangers sharing the same table at a late-night diner. The quiet was oppressive, but it wasn't really unpleasant. It was good to focus on the food and the gratifying feeling of being sated. My body was slowing down and warming up. I tried not to slurp the sauce, but part of it inevitably got on my chin. I spied a roll of napkins on the counter. Jack caught me looking. He got up and tore a few pieces, handing them to me.

"Thanks, I –"

"So, about last night."

I paused, mid-wiping, and stared up at him. "Yeah?"

"Let's, ah, keep it between us." I noticed that the gap in his mouth made him weigh the words differently. As if even the pauses mattered.

I set my napkin aside. "I wasn't planning on telling anyone. It doesn't look great on my end, either."

"Good."

"Do you – do you have a lot of freak-outs like that?"

He sat back down in his seat. "I have it under control."

I felt a sudden chill run down my spine. What was I _doing_? I didn't even know this guy, yet I was eating meatballs in his kitchen. And we were alone. He'd had some psychotic PTSD episode only a night before, and I'd decided it was a good idea to share dinner with him. What the hell was wrong with me?

He got up and opened the fridge. He took out two beers, but he also saw the money I'd left there.

"Why don't you take it? I'm not trying to, uh, insult you."

 _No, you're just trying to pay me to shut me up._

And I'm sure this little dinner was also a part of his "let's keep it between us" plan. He must've thought I was easy to bribe. I stared at my almost empty plate. Yeah...he wasn't wrong.

But I shook my head. "I just don't feel like taking any more charity today."

He popped open one of the beers. " _More_?"

I bit my lip, feeling the itch to complain burning down my throat like strong alcohol. I refused the beer he offered me.

"This customer at work…"

And then I told him, I told him the whole thing from start to finish. I told him about Cara and her stupid airport fiancé.

"…and it's like, she thinks I don't know why she came back. She thinks she's being subtle. But I know. She just came back to rub it in my face, how great her life is. She wanted to brag to the high-school loser. And then to act like she was doing me a favor... What a bitch. I bet they'll get divorced in half a year, and she'll only end up with a very small chunk of his bank account, because that guy seems like the cautious type. And _then_ I'm sure she'll drop by my boutique to buy some stupid " _divorcée_ " earrings or something."

Jack was drinking his beer, watching me with a steady gaze.

I could've stopped talking and paced myself. It's not like I even meant half the words I was saying, but sometimes we keep going even when it's stupid and pointless. It gives us a sense of satisfaction to know we're digging the hole deeper.

"You probably think I'm being petty," I went on, annoyed with myself. "She's not a bitch. She can be decent. She was okay in high-school. I mean, she was bearable. Which is saying a lot, because teenagers are terrible, as a rule. I remember she could never get my name right. My last name, I mean. She kept saying Flowers instead of Florres, even though I'd told her how to pronounce it. Maybe she did it on purpose. Anyway, I hope she's _happy_. Oh yeah, the ring she chose was _hideous_. It looked like someone had puked pink all over it. Okay. Okay, I'm done."

I sat there feeling like a blabbering moron. I hadn't even drunk any beer and I was talking like a drunk. I just wanted to say goodnight and go upstairs and fall on my bed without removing my shoes. I don't know how I'd ended up here, with my stitched foot and the plastic mirror and the yellow stress ball.

Jack set his beer on the table.

"You don't know the, ah, power you have over her, do you?"

I peered at him through my fog of self-loathing. "What do you mean?"

"She came back to your store just to impress you. She gave up buying a better ring because of you. That's power."

I hadn't thought of it that way. I'd mostly seen it as humiliation on my end. The new perspective was startling. I chewed on my lip.

"I guess…I guess you're right."

Jack nodded, his expression somewhere between indolent and indifferent. But maybe that was just his scars. Maybe underneath them he was a sympathetic listener.

"People give away their power all the time," he said, throwing the can in the trash. "It's pretty, uh, stupid if you ask me."

Okay, he was implying _I_ was stupid. Definitely not a sympathetic listener.

"Next time I see her, I'll let her know I'm the boss," I replied scornfully.

"You _are_ ," he clarified without a hint of irony, his mouth pulled down in a fractured line.

I blinked. There was something so arresting about his expression, no matter how unbecoming.

"That's the thing. We're always the boss," he muttered, picking up the empty dishes and depositing them carefully in the sink. Like they were incredibly fragile.

"If someone makes us feel _small_ ," he elaborated, as he turned on the tap, "it's on us."

The spray of water sounded like a heard of buffaloes.

"Gee, thanks. That sure cheered me up," I muttered, hating the fact that he was not all that wrong.

"Any time," he replied sardonically.

I felt this was my cue to leave. I picked up my jacket and pulled my arms through it lackadaisically. I felt a pleasant drowsy feeling. I'd eaten well. I might get a goodnight sleep.

"Thanks for dinner," I mustered, walking towards the hallway.

I wondered if I'd ever have a reason to see his apartment again, or even see _him_ up close. Not that I craved his company, but it was hard erasing those scars from my mind once they were imprinted there.

"Julia."

I hadn't expected to hear my name, so I probably looked like a deer caught in the headlights.

"Yeah?"

"All things, uh, considered, she probably _is_ a bitch."

I blinked. And then I cracked a guilty smile. Well, it was more like a shameful smirk.

He didn't smile back, which made me feel like he really meant it.

I was probably an asshole, but I left his apartment feeling better than I had in days.

* * *

 _Many thanks for your reviews! Special nod to **Devlin** , I'm really happy you like the direction of the story so far, and I agree, the Joker makes any kind of ugliness ambiguous and erotic (probably in no small part thanks to Heath haha). Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter. Let me know! _


	5. Chapter 5

5.

I'd lied when I said I was the amateur of nothing. I used to be decent at drawing. My grade-school teacher thought I had a "unique vision", but she said that to a lot of kids. So I didn't necessarily trust her. But I liked to sketch things and play around with colors. I only got confirmation I wasn't terrible when this art professor from a fancy school visited our district and we had to put up our best works on a wall in the teachers' lounge for him to inspect. This was back in high school. The guy looked frankly horrified by our "tortured teen" creations, but when he came upon my drawing of a bridge in flames (the actual Tri-Gate Bridge in town), he shrugged and concluded, "This is not completely tasteless".

My enthusiasm for the "arts" quickly tapered off after I joined "the real world". I had to work to feed myself and that left little time for sketching, or even the _mood_ to sketch. Hell, I hadn't picked up a pencil in three years.

Yet for some reason, I suddenly got an urge to draw again. I don't know why. Could be that recent events had inspired me. But I found myself one Sunday night sitting in bed with an old notebook in my lap, trying to draw that bridge in flames again.

My hand was shaky, at best, and my lack of practice _really_ showed. Drawing wasn't like riding a bike. But after an hour and a half of mindless sketching and crisscrossing, I thought I _almost_ had a likeness to my old picture. Sure, I could've done something more productive with my night, like gone to bed earlier, but I just knew I couldn't have slept if I hadn't put something down.

Weird. Was I hitting some quarter-life crisis?

The next day, I wanted to draw again. I was in the middle of a sale when my hand started itching. It felt like someone was running a feather tip over it. I ran the credit card through the machine and waited a small eternity to see the receipt come out. The customer was telling me something about her _dogs_ , but all I could think about was smooth paper and charcoal.

I wondered if this was what a relapse looked like, if this was how alcoholics felt when they got a sip of wine after a decade of sobriety.

I pulled out an old receipt and started doodling on it anxiously, looping lines in a demented spiral, waiting to clock out for the day so I could go home and draw.

The funny thing was, when I actually _got_ home that evening and sat on my rundown couch with my notebook in hand, I _didn't_ want to draw anymore. I didn't feel like it.

Maybe it had been a fluke.

It kept coming and going for the next few days. Sometimes I'd feel the urge so badly I'd start drawing in my head, sometimes I didn't see the point of it.

It felt like a seasonal flu I couldn't get rid of.

I grappled with it for a while, until I saw Jack again at the Laundromat downstairs. It had been three weeks since our "dinner". We'd intercepted each other on the stairs a couple of times and we'd nodded to each other politely, but no actual words were exchanged.

Now, we both said "hi" stiffly. The stiffness, on my part, was due to the fact that one of my favorite shirts had come out in two colors.

"Great," I muttered.

He peered at the object of my distress with mild curiosity.

I lifted up the shirt and spread it across my chest. "At least I know what I'm wearing for Halloween."

Half of his mouth quirked up again. The scars were rippled into motion, and it was, as always, a grotesque and fascinating spectacle. The gaping hole smiled at me, but his eyes remained dull.

It was in that moment I realized that this was what I _really_ wanted to draw. What had been on my mind all this time. I wanted to draw his scars. Not because they were _scars_ , but because their movement, their design was so unfathomable. It was always changing. I wanted to capture that. For some reason, they reminded me of my bridge engulfed in flames.

I guess that had been the catalyst for my craving. I was sort of ashamed.

"Foot still good?" he asked, pulling me away from my thoughts.

"Yeah, I got the stitches out a few days ago."

I started folding the rest of my clothes, spying him from the corner of my eye.

He was sorting the contents of his basket.

"How's the mirror?" I asked.

"Fine."

"Cool. Cool... Dandy."

 _Cool cool dandy?_ What the hell was wrong with me? Did I happen to have a lame version of Tourette's?

"So I guess I'll see you later –" I mumbled, trying to hurry up my folding process.

"Did it leave a scar?" he asked impromptu.

I looked up startled. "Sorry?"

"The cut on your foot."

" _Oh_. Sort of. It's small, though. It doesn't bother me."

He nodded to himself. He didn't speak again.

Maybe I shouldn't have said that it didn't bother me. After all, his scars probably bothered _him_. Why was talking to him so difficult?

I left with a feeling that I'd done something wrong. Well, I _had_ used the word "dandy" in the twenty-first century. But there was something else too. Something about scars.

When I returned to my apartment, I took off my shoe and proceeded to stare at the sole of my foot.

My scar didn't look anything like his, but there was an interesting quality to it. It looked like a mountain ridge. Like a landmark that stood in for a lost continent. As if this was the only residue left of a body that was once covered in scars. I'd never given much thought to wounds and the way they change the skin. I ran my fingers over the jagged line. It was like someone had drawn on me.

I put my foot down. I still wanted to draw his face.

I just didn't know if I'd ever have the courage.

* * *

A few days later, I stopped at a deli to grab a slice of pizza on my way home. I was standing at one of the tables on the terrace when I saw someone whip past me really fast. Their hoodie covered most of their face, but I caught a flash of their profile as the streetlight hit their back and I thought I saw scars. Maybe I was seeing them everywhere these days.

But after a few minutes I saw the same figure jogging towards the deli again. It was Jack. I recognized him now. And he saw me too, because he slowed down to a sprint as he approached me.

He came to a halt in front of the deli, a few feet away from me.

"Late evening run?" I asked amiably.

"Something like that."

"Do you run every day?"

"Almost," he replied, wiping the sweat from his brow.

"Gotta stay in shape, huh?" I joked, toying awkwardly with my napkin. I wished he'd pull down his hoodie so I could look at the hole in his mouth. Yeah, I was sick, but it was an artistic interest, okay?

"You heading home?" he asked in a surly fashion, and I saw that his knees were jittery, as if he couldn't quite keep still.

"Yeah, you?"

He nodded and I guess he expected me to start walking right away because he jerked his head in the direction of our street and took off. I wrestled with my bag and made an effort to follow him.

His pace was still fast, but he waited for me to catch up.

Gotham at night is beautiful if you know where to go. Our neighborhood wasn't on the list of "tourist sights". We weren't close to the river, so there was no picturesque dock view, and while we were a few train stations away from the center, the glamour of North City Park and Uptown Square did not extend to our block. Even the streetlights here had a foggy quality, like they could be snuffed out at any moment. It was sort of depressing, although I knew there were uglier places in the world. Far uglier.

We both half-walked, half-sprinted in silence.

After a few minutes, my stomach started rumbling again. That one slice hadn't been very filling, but rent was coming up. I couldn't afford to buy a whole pie. I'd get my paycheck on Friday, but until then I had to tighten my belt.

"Hungry?" he asked after a few moments. His voice sounded disused. I wondered if these were the only moments when he actually spoke. He didn't have a regular job that I knew of; he didn't entertain friends or guests. He didn't really interact with anyone. He was almost as secluded as the 40-year old pianist on the fifth floor. They might've made good friends. I was getting side-tracked.

"No…I uh – I'm good."

"Doesn't sound like it."

I heaved a sigh. "I just have to make it until my next paycheck."

He shoved his hands in the pockets of his slacks. "You need money?"

"Jesus, no," I blurted out.

He inhaled sharply, and it almost sounded like a strangled laugh. "Yeah. You, uh, need food."

"I'm okay."

"You liked my cooking, didn't you?"

I raised my eyebrows in surprise. This was a turn in the conversation.

"I think I was pretty vocal about my appreciation," I replied, feeling my mouth water just at the memory of those spaghetti and meat balls. Damn.

"I could do it again."

"Do what?"

"Cook," he replied simply.

"Yeah, I'm guessing that skill doesn't just go away after one use," I countered sardonically.

This time, he did chuckle, and it sounded like an actual laugh.

"I could, uh, cook something for you," he elaborated.

I blew some warm air into my fists. Our building was only a few feet away. I wanted this walk to finish so I wouldn't have to wonder if he pitied me. But I also wanted this walk to go on, because sometimes you need someone's pity.

"That's okay, I don't need help –"

"Didn't say it was help," he retorted. "Wouldn't do it for free."

I turned towards him. "You do realize me waiting for my paycheck means I'm broke, right? I can't pay you."

"Don't want your money."

"What do you want?"

"I want to look at your scar," he said, as if it was the plainest thing in the world.

* * *

Reader, I'm not proud of my actions. I wasn't raised with a strong moral spirit, but I'm guessing there should be some kind of line you don't cross. A line where you say, " _this_ I won't do". I haven't found my line yet.

I was hungry. And he was an almost trained chef who was offering me delicious food. All for the small price of looking at my foot.

We went directly to his place.

"Make yourself, uh, comfortable," he said indifferently, and walked straight to the kitchen.

His apartment looked much the same, except for some old newspapers that were piling up on the coffee table.

I dropped my bag on the floor and sat down on the couch. The same couch where he'd stitched me up. Ironies abound.

I turned on the TV for want of something to do. I could hear him knocking pots and pans in the kitchen.

"You like chicken?" he asked from the hallway.

"Love it."

He could've asked me if I liked snake tongue I would've answered the same. I was _very_ excited about the prospect of eating something that didn't taste like cardboard.

I flipped through the channels. There was nothing too interesting on the TV, so I reached out and grabbed a few of the newspapers.

Some were weeks-old. Most of them, to my surprise, were gossip rags. The kind of tabloids that people pretended they didn't read. You know the ones. Shocking break-ups, drunk escapades, sordid panty shots. I flipped through them, wondering why Jack was interested in this stuff. I mean, I understood the pull of the scandalous, but he seemed like the last guy who'd enjoy this as a guilty pleasure. I recognized many of the Gotham socialites from the photos. I even picked out Bruce Wayne, surrounded by his supermodels, looking tortured and privileged. There were some other swanky business men and women gracing the covers, many of them caught in some embarrassing pose.

I hadn't realized how much time had passed. I was absorbed in a trashy article about a famous singer who was having an affair with the mayor, so I jumped out of my skin when Jack cleared his throat.

"Food's ready."

He swiped the newspapers from the table and set down a steaming plate of what looked like boiled potatoes and fried chicken breast. But the breast was stuffed with a lot of shit I couldn't identify. It didn't look bad, though. Not by long shot.

"Cordon bleu," he explained, taking the newspaper from my hands. I gave it up obediently.

"That sounds French-y."

He raised an eyebrow. "You never had it before?"

The hole in his mouth was judging me.

"No, I fired my French cook last month," I quipped. "Why is it called blue when it's not?"

"Used to be the food of, uh, big shots. Knights and kings."

"Wow, I guess I should be honored."

He shrugged. "It's pretty average stuff nowadays."

"How the mighty have fallen. It's a true lesson in humility," I commented, grabbing the fork next to the plate.

"Anyone ever tell you you talk too much?"

I sniffed. "You were the one who offered to do this."

He folded his arms across his chest, and I couldn't help but notice he was pretty toned for such a lean guy. Not in a hot way or anything. Muscles aren't that attractive. I know they make a big case out of them in romance novels. The heroine always remarks that the love interest is super buffed. Which is fine, if you're into that. But you know, a guy who can cook you a "cordon bleu" is probably cooler.

I didn't find him hot or cool, just to make things clear.

"Yeah, I did," he agreed. "So, uh, take off your shoes."

* * *

I stared at the ceiling. I could've made small constellations out of the cracks, if I'd known any actual constellations. My belly was so full it was staging a protest. Cordon bleu was now officially my favorite thing ever. The empty plate lay on my chest like war spoils. He was sitting on the table in front of me, with my foot in his lap.

He was looking over the scar. He had been looking at it for a while. He had touched it a few times too, running his coarse fingers across its jagged outline. It had made me flinch at first, but I quickly got used to it. It was a very clinical touch, like a professional inspecting the progress of an experiment. But there was such intensity in his eyes that the action went beyond simple medical curiosity.

At least his hands weren't cold. Still, it felt like a strange intrusion of intimacy. And I think he knew it too.

I finally looked down from the ceiling and met his eyes.

"You're _so_ weird," I said.

"Pot calling kettle black," he retorted, going back to his task.

Yeah, I suppose. I mean I had said _yes_ to this.

"So…" I trailed off, shifting on the couch. My butt was falling asleep. "All I have to do to get a free meal is get injured again?"

He put my foot down gently. I appreciated that.

"It's fine if you don't. Get injured, that is."

I sat up. "Really?"

"Uh…yeah. Sure." He didn't sound very enthusiastic about it. In fact, he looked pretty bummed. Like he was regretting this entire ordeal.

"I was just joking," I quickly changed gears. "You don't have to do this again, of course."

Jack got up with a grunt, picking up my empty plate from my chest.

"Dinner tomorrow, same time."

My eyes widened considerably. "Seriously, you don't have to –"

"Don't be late," he added with unwavering finality and shuffled off towards the kitchen.

I sat there on his couch with my bare foot resting against his table. I waited for him to come back out again, but he didn't. After a while, I put my shoes on, grabbed my coat and bag and let myself out.

I would be lying if I said I didn't look forward to the next meal.

* * *

They looked like twisted branches, beaten into submission by wind and rain. Still, there was something stubborn and independent about their pattern. I was afraid to give them a face, though. They would become too real. But these _were_ his scars. As I saw them, at least. It was a start.

I put the pencil down. And I ripped out the piece of paper from my notebook and shoved it in the back of my drawer, somewhere where no one could see, not even me.

* * *

 _I'd like to thank everyone for their reviews, I'm really enjoying writing this story and I hope you're enjoying reading it too. I know these are some trying times for us all, but storytelling is one way to make things better, I feel. Anyway, I hope you liked this chapter!_


	6. Chapter 6

6.

So, _The Iron Giant_ was downloading pretty fast. Where would I be without illegal torrent websites? I checked my watch. Still a few minutes left until dinner. Wouldn't want to be late.

I was still having second thoughts about the movie choice, but it took me a whole afternoon to decide on a harmless animated cartoon about an alien robot, so I wasn't about to backtrack now.

The matter of fact was, dinner with Jack was awkward. He'd been cooking for me for about a week now and we always ate our meals in stifled silence because he was no longer in a chatty mood and I was pretty tired from work, so it just felt like we were strangers at a YMCA. I didn't mind so much, but I constantly felt like I was intruding on his privacy, and he didn't exactly correct my impression – he seemed put out by our dinners, but he insisted I should come over the next day too. He hadn't asked to see my scar anymore, so there was nothing in it for him.

I suspected I was now just a charity case he couldn't ignore. When, last night, I told him my paycheck had arrived and I could return to my bad fast-food habits, he said I should still come over. He sounded as keen as a ten-year old at the dentist's, but I didn't say anything, because a free meal is a free meal.

I liked his cooking too much to stop taking advantage of his generosity. But I was going to give something back. I was going to provide entertainment.

I'd noticed he didn't have a DVD or anything and well, neither did _I_ , but my six-year old laptop was still going strong. Sure, it heated up like a furnace if you spent more than three consecutive hours on it, but _The Iron Giant_ was under 90 minutes, so we should be fine. There was nothing good on his TV anyway, so I thought we'd watch a movie while we ate. That way, it wouldn't feel like I was a total burden.

At this point, I knew the door was open so I let myself into his apartment as usual.

I could hear Jack rummaging in the kitchen.

"Be there in five," he called out gruffly.

This gave me time to set things up. I plugged the laptop and brought the cable round the couch and placed it on top of some books on the living room table. I was fiddling with the sound and resolution when he walked in with a steaming tray.

He stopped short in the hallway.

"What's this?"

"My laptop."

"What's it doing here?" he continued, narrowed eyes trained on it as if it was some kind of weapon.

"I thought…we could watch a movie?" I tried with a tense smile.

"What for?"

I scratched at my arm. "Well, some people watch them for fun."

"….we're, uh, eating, not having fun."

"They don't have to be mutually exclusive," I argued, although I was having second thoughts.

"Still don't see the point."

I cocked my head to the side. "You mean you never watch anything?"

He shrugged. "I read."

I thought about those cheap tabloids he had stacked around the room. What else did he read?

"Please tell me you're not one of those people who think TV and video games rot the brain," I said, more to gauge his tastes than anything else.

He clicked his tongue. "Nah. I, uh, just don't like moving images."

I blinked.

That was weirdly specific.

Who doesn't like moving images?

He noticed my confusion.

"They're, uh, distracting. I get headaches."

"You mean, because of your…condition?" I hazarded.

He scowled. "I have no condition."

Recent events proved otherwise, but I wasn't going to rile him up. I found it pretty sad, though, that he couldn't enjoy some things anymore. It must've sucked to live with PTSD. Yeah, I know, understatement of the year, but some things bear repeating.

"I'm sorry," I said, pulling the top down.

An angry sound came up from his throat. "Don't be. Let's watch."

"We don't have to," I assured him, but it seemed that my sudden concern only spurned him on.

"I _said_ we're watching. Move over."

He dumped the tray down in front of the raised laptop and settled down on the couch.

"Hey, mac and cheese!" I burst out in a fit of joy when I saw the casserole. It smelled divine and there was so _much_ of it.

"I, uh, added broccoli and lime. My recipe."

"You're such a Barefoot Contessa," I teased, grabbing a forkful. He didn't deign my comment with a reply; he just grabbed his own plate and looked straight ahead at the laptop screen.

This was my cue to start the movie. I clicked play and settled next to him.

The food was delicious, and it was the perfect comfort food for childhood nostalgia.

There was a lot of flashing and sudden movement in the first few scenes, since the robot was landing on Earth. I tried not to look over at him for a reaction. If he couldn't handle it, he'd tell me to hit pause, right?

When the lighthouse on screen turned into the alien's giant eyes I almost gave a start. I'd forgotten how cool this movie was, visually.

Jack scoffed. "He's not that, uh, _gigantic_."

"He is, just keep watching."

But Jack wasn't impressed by the robot or by the heart-warming friendship between him and the little boy. He didn't appear to be charmed by their antics in the forest or at the lake, when the robot dived into the shallow water and made the whole thing overflow. He didn't laugh at Dean, the beatnik, sitting wet in the middle of the road, and he didn't thing all the 50s references were cute. He didn't seem to care one way or another; he was just gazing straight ahead, blinking from time to time, not really registering anything.

Only once did he mutter something about how the government was "probably on the right track about that thing".

I turned to him, scandalized.

"How can you _say_ that? He's not a thing. He's innocent and harmless. He's a truer human being than most of those government guys. And they want to blow him up!"

He regarded me passively. "What part of that doesn't, uh, make sense to you?"

"Well, it's not right!" I sputtered. "They should give him a chance."

"Didn't say it was right. But it makes sense. Good guys are uh, way more dangerous than bad ones."

I frowned. "What do you mean?"

He heaved a sigh and set the empty plate in front of him. "Good guys don't give up. You gotta put them, uh, down quickly."

I thought about what he said for a moment or two. He had a point, but that was a pretty grim view for a kids' movie.

I was soon distracted by the tragic ending, where the Iron Giant sacrifices himself for the kid and goes after the missile. I always got a bit misty-eyed at this part, although I didn't cry in front of him, because that would have been weird. But I was expecting him to be even a _little_ bit moved, it is a pretty heart-breaking scene.

Jack hummed to himself. "So. You want dessert?"

I pursed my lips. "Come on, this is really sad stuff."

"Uh-huh. Fruit salad?"

I was still staring at the screen. I didn't want to turn around and reveal my slightly red eyes. "Fine. But you must be made of stone."

He rose from the couch and paused in front of me. "Don't you mean _iron_?"

I snorted. "Did you just make a pun?"

The missing corner of his mouth seemed to twitch. I counted that as a smile.

I grabbed the plates and the tray and followed him to the kitchen. He was already rumbling through his fridge, pulling out a bunch of bananas and apples.

I set the dishes in the sink and I turned on the water.

"Leave'em," he muttered.

"No, it's fine, I don't mind washing –"

"I do. Leave'em."

I frowned. "Why? I want to help."

He raised an eyebrow. "Do I look like I need help?"

I opened my mouth…and closed it quickly. "No. But you don't have to need it. I'm offering eitherway."

"Save it for, uh, another time."

I didn't understand his stubbornness; it's not like I was trying to insult him. But I stepped back and leaned my shoulder against the door frame.

I watched him at work; he rinsed the fruit thoroughly, then took out a cutting board and proceeded to chop them down into little squares. He handled the knife with absolute precision. Each cube was equal to the one before it.

I'd never noticed how long his fingers were. I'd only felt their callused touch, but there was something starkly elegant about them. They were the opposite of his scars. As if they had been protected from violence.

They'd have made an interesting contrast on paper.

"Don't you hate it when people, uh, peel away the skin?" he muttered.

I started. "What?"

He tapped a red apple with the knife. "The skin's the best part."

I nodded halfheartedly.

"Jack?"

"Huh?"

"Why do you cook so much?"

"You complaining?" he questioned, throwing me a look.

"Oh, no. I'm a happy customer. Well, I don't pay you…so I guess I'm a happy freeloader," I joked, laughing uneasily.

He didn't comment.

I continued with some difficulty. "I just meant, you put a lot of effort in it. You could probably become a professional."

He shrugged. "Not the point."

"What _is_ the point, then?"

His knife paused over a slippery banana slice.

"Doctor said…doctor said I need to use my hands."

I licked my lips quickly. " _Oh_. Therapist?"

"Something like that," he muttered.

"What happens if you don't use your hands?" I ventured.

Jack seemed to hit the knife harder on the board. "I just get an itch. So I, uh, keep busy."

I understood now why he didn't want me washing the dishes. He had to do everything himself.

"Well…" I trailed off, staring at the floor, "it's good you're seeing someone."

Jack rounded on me. "Why?"

I floundered. "Why? Because it's always useful to …talk to someone, I mean who isn't a little screwy nowadays? Not that you're - ! I mean, we all need support, you know? Modernity is a disease. That's what one of my teachers said in night class. No one is really _okay_ … I mean what even is mental health?"

He stared at me for a moment. "Gonna dig your hole deeper?"

I released a heavy chuckle. "Okay. I'll shut up."

He shrugged. "I'm not going anymore anyway."

I frowned. "Going to therapy?"

He nodded.

"Why not?"

"Why would I? I, uh, got all the advice I needed."

I raised my eyebrows in disbelief. "Okay, just cuz the doctor told you to pick up cooking doesn't mean they healed you."

"Well…like you said, what even is mental health?" he taunted.

I bit the inside of my cheek. "Touche. But I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be an on-going process. It's not supposed to end."

He nodded. "Exactly. I can, uh, do it by myself forever."

" _Can_ you, though?" I wondered quietly.

I didn't notice when he'd stepped away from the cutting board, because one moment I was looking at the floor and the next he was standing right in front of me, with the big, sharp knife close to my face.

I could see sticky gobs of fruit clinging to the blade.

"J-Jack?" My voice almost squeaked.

A small ripple disturbed his scars, twisting his lips.

"Huh," he said, leaning one lazy hand above my head and the other still holding the knife close to my cheek. He had me pinned to the door.

"Look at that. I can somehow, uh, control myself."

My body was still frozen in shock from the proximity of the blade, and it took me a moment or two to register his sarcasm.

"It's a miracle," he deadpanned, lowering the knife.

He was fucking with me. I couldn't believe it.

I pushed against him roughly and he stepped back, allowing me to escape into the hallway.

I could hear him laughing behind me.

"Your face…" he laughed, "you actually thought…"

"It's not funny!" I turned around, my cheeks flushed with anger.

"It's, uh, a little funny."

"No! It's sick!"

"You said it, not me."

"I can't believe I shared _The Iron Giant_ with you. You're _such_ a weirdo."

"You keep saying…" he trailed off, returning to the cutting board. "Still want dessert? I got whipped cream too."

My shoulders slumped. "…yeah."

* * *

We rewatched some of my favorite scenes while we ate the salad. It was the least he could do after that stupid scare. I still couldn't believe he'd pulled that shit. But he _had_ given me a second helping of whipped cream and maple syrup, so I was okay. The Iron Giant was going ballistic on the Army trucks while I was spooning some apples in my mouth. "I love this part."

"And you call me violent…"

"I called you a weirdo. There's a difference," I pointed out.

He stretched his arms sleepily and I almost caught a look at his midriff.

"What're we, uh, watching next time?" he asked dully.

I turned towards him. "You wanna watch something else?"

"No. But it shuts you up."

" _Excuse_ me?"

He shrugged. "I noticed you talk less when you watch a movie."

"Gee, tell me how you really feel."

His eyes seemed to sparkle as he leaned forward and took the empty bowl from my hands. "You don't want to know."

* * *

In bed that night I kept picturing his hands, running over his scars, trying to smooth them over, trying to sew them shut.

The contrast was pretty. Very pretty. My hand itched to draw it. Is this the itch he felt too?

His hand above my head and the knife close to my cheek.

For a moment there, I thought he'd do it. I really did.

I should've probably stopped showing up for dinner.

I didn't.

* * *

 _Thank you so much for your reviews, (especially HoistTheColours, thank you!), I love reading your thoughtful commentary and I'm really happy you're digging the set-up so far. I hope future chapters don't weird you out, this story's kinda indie, in that it's smaller in scope (for now) in order to build up Jack and Julia's relationship. Thank you for reading and please review!_


	7. Chapter 7

7.

In the next few weeks we watched _All Dogs Go to Heaven_ , _Toy Story_ , _Return to Oz_ and _The Secret of NIMH_. Since kids' movies were a neutral, family-friendly territory, I stuck with it like a pro. I learned a little bit more about Jack's tastes…or lack thereof. He had some very specific complaints.

"That alligator number was complete nonsense," he said about _All Dogs Go to Heaven_.

I balanced the popcorn bowl on my stomach and squinted at him. "You have a problem with a singing alligator in a movie about the ethics of dog hell?"

He rolled his eyes, which looked less sarcastic on him and more tired. "The alligator was supposed to, uh, eat the dog but instead he starts singing at him. Out of nowhere."

I chewed on a particularly crunchy piece of popcorn. "I don't know, being serenaded sounds like pretty good torture to me."

Jack chuckled in his "I hate being made to laugh" way. "Point taken."

He thought _Toy Story_ was kind of stupid.

"This boy's got shit taste in toys."

I think I almost dropped the sashimi plate on the floor. Jack had surprised me that night by revealing that he could do Japanese cuisine too. Well, only sashimi apparently, which was mainly slicing up different types of raw fish. Still.

"What are you talking about? He's got a _lot_ of cool stuff."

He raised an eyebrow at me. "A dinosaur and a potato head?"

"Okay, Debbie Downer, what toys did _you_ have growing up?"

That definitely dampened the mood, because Jack frowned and turned his attention back to the screen, deciding he should complain about the "absentee mother" next. I tried to ask him about his childhood again once the movie was done, but he wouldn't have it.

"That Sid kid's gonna need medication for the rest of his, uh, life."

"So, were you a Sid or an Andy growing up?" I asked, innocently enough.

Jack didn't look impressed. In fact, he grabbed the sashimi plate and didn't give it back to me.

He totally fell asleep during _The Secret of NIMH_.

"How can you snooze during this family drama? A mother is trying to save her son!" I tapped him on the shoulder frantically.

Jack swatted me away with his palm and muttered "she's a rat" under his breath. His head was pressed against the backseat of the couch, his mouth was partially open and his hair had fallen in his eyes. I remembered watching him sleep, many moons ago. That had been a weirder time because he had just sewn up my foot. Now he looked more comfortable and relaxed, and sort of cute. Not in a puppy-dog kind of way. But you know, like someone falling asleep during _The Secret of NIMH_.

I think he secretly enjoyed _Return to Oz_ since it's a really creepy, atmospheric movie, but he just kept making faces all throughout, like nothing could impress him.

"Those wheelers are scary and you know it!"

"They have wheels for hands. Not exactly, uh, terrifying."

"But their weird helmets! And the way they roll around!" I protested, pointing at the screen. "Admit it, you would be scared shitless if those guys came at you."

Jack scoffed, blowing air out of his slanted mouth. "You know what's, uh, scarier?"

"What?"

He pulled my cushion from underneath me, making me roll off the couch. I fell on my bum like an idiot.

"Ouch! Why'd you do _that_?"

I saw that he was struggling not to laugh, which made me turn a bright scarlet.

"See," he mocked, " _rolling_ isn't scary. It's, uh, funny."

I threw the cushion at him, but he dodged it easily.

"You suck," I concluded aptly.

"Eloquent," he quipped.

We were…sort of enjoying ourselves? I wouldn't go so far as to say we were having a _blast_ , but during one of the scarier scenes of _Return to Oz_ (which _is_ scary, no matter what he says), I did almost grab his arm out of fear, and he did almost let me. That's what pals do, right?

I was cautiously happy about having acquired a new friend. My life so far had consisted of scant friendships that usually dissolved when I had to change jobs or move apartment for said jobs. I wondered if Jack would be one of many. I wondered if we'd eventually drift apart, if we'd slowly lose track of each other, like I'd done with so many of my old friends. Gotham was a big city and you usually ended up alone, unless you had an actual family behind you. The future was a mystery to me. But I wanted to be optimistic. It was likely he would move on from this place someday (I was sure he could afford it), but I knew one thing; he wouldn't come by my store to rub it in my face. Or get married, for that matter. I wasn't being mean; I just had a gut feeling he wouldn't ever compromise his solitude.

Not for the world.

* * *

We watched _Babe: Pig in the City_ next. The live-action story of a talking pig stuck in a hotel, surrounded by wacky animals, was ripe material for his heckling, and I think I had picked it on purpose. I guess I was becoming fond of his constant criticism.

We were a good half hour into the movie and I was stuffing my face with some delicious apple pie (replete with almonds and ginger - his special recipe), when the song started.

It was a weird scene in which an orangutan and a clown were trying to make Babe, the pig, perform in their circus act. The pig clearly didn't want to, so he accidentally destroyed their set. He tripped the fat clown, which inadvertently set fire to the whole stage.

As the flames rose into the air, swallowing up the props, Edith Piaf started singing in the background.

 _Non, rien de rien, non, je ne regrette rien…_

The melancholy tune turned the whole thing into a tragicomic grotesque spectacle.

 _Ni le bien qu'on m'a fait, ni le mal…_

It was maybe 40 seconds tops.

Jack had frozen in his seat next to me. He couldn't move. His fingers twitched convulsively, his eyes glued to the screen. His mouth hung open unattractively, like he couldn't make the effort to keep it shut.

 _Tout ça m'est bien égal…!_

The fat clown was glaring at the pig, both of them soaking wet from the sprinklers raining down on them from the ceiling. Jack hissed under his breath. It sounded like a snake which had been stepped on. It sounded _wrong_.

"Are you okay?"

Silence.

"Hey. What's wrong? Do you want me to stop the –"

I was already leaning forward to press Pause. I didn't get to.

Jack had grabbed my tiny, overworked laptop and hurled it casually at the wall.

I sat there, with my hands pressed to my mouth, staring at the broken remains of my laptop.

Jack stood in the center of the room, panting softly.

He ran a shaking hand through his hair.

"Go."

I don't think I immediately registered the word, it was so quietly spoken.

"I said go," he repeated, jamming both thumbs into his eyes.

I got up like a diver walking underwater. My feet were so heavy. My body was shaking. I was afraid of walking past him. I tried to make my legs go faster, but it was like I was in a trance.

"Get the fuck out!" he spat all of a sudden, turning on me, eyes red with a foreign rage. He flicked his head at my laptop, as if that would be my future fate if I didn't run.

I stumbled over my legs on my way to the door, my eyes wide, my lips moving frantically, trying to form words that didn't make sense.

I heaved a dry sob when I reached my apartment. I clicked all the locks and pressed my back against the solid wood. I couldn't cry or even be sad. I couldn't be anything.

I hugged my knees to my chest and bit down on my shins.

The apartment above was quiet, except for his pacing.

* * *

Well, who needs friends anyway? I sure don't. I'm happy being a working class hermit.

That's what I told myself over the next few days. I woke up every morning with a shitty taste in my mouth, like I'd eaten a bunch of rotten eggs. And I couldn't throw them up.

I knew I should've been more careful. I knew I should've stayed away and I _hadn't_ because I'm a nosy bitch. What did I think was going to happen? That we'd hold hands and skip? I had managed to trigger a PTSD episode in an unstable ex-soldier. _Of course_ that's what happened.

I was going to take care of myself better from now on. I wasn't going to visit his place anymore, obviously. I would only say hi from afar if we happened to cross paths on the stairs but I'd keep my eyes low and shuffle quickly downstairs. I was going to be a distant acquaintance, until he got the message and left me alone.

And I was going to save up money for a new laptop which I'd keep under lock and key and never let anyone touch it again.

I didn't follow up on any of those resolutions.

But I tried, for a while.

* * *

I looked up the lyrics to that Edith Piaf song at work. I intuitively knew what she was talking about, but I needed confirmation.

 _No, absolutely nothing_

 _No, I regret nothing,_

 _Neither the good that's been done to me,_

 _Nor the bad; it is all the same!_

"Nor the bad..." I mouthed as I turned the computer's screen back to blank. I understood not regretting the good times, but making peace with the bad was a different thing altogether.

It can't _all_ be the same. Some bad things shouldn't have happened. Some bad things could have been avoided. (Who had given him those scars?)

Surely, we need regrets.

Don't we?

* * *

I received a package at work. Actually, I received two. The first was a bulky cardboard container and the second was an obscenely large bouquet of roses, still dappled with dew.

Both the customers and my co-worker, Stacy, gaped at the items as they were brought up to the counter by _two_ separate delivery guys.

"Oh my God, did you get engaged?" Stacy mouthed, her eyes alit with curiosity.

The bouquet was bigger than half of my body which made for a comical image when I tried to hold it up. The roses smelled like rain. There was no card attached.

Stacy couldn't wait for me to make sense of this wealthy array; she went ahead and ripped open the container.

"Okay, scratch that, did you win the lottery?"

I pulled out the brand new laptop from its casing. A milky-white, expensive looking Lenovo.

My customers were congratulating me on my engagement and lottery winnings.

I smiled faintly, though inside I was about to burst into manic laughter, because I'd discovered there was a third item, lodged skillfully inside the bouquet of roses. A small box of chocolates.

I couldn't believe this.

He had bought me the classics; roses, chocolates…and a swanky new laptop.

Nothing wins a girl faster than _that_ deadly combo.

Somehow, it seemed perfectly in character of him to be this clueless.

"Seriously, what rich asshole _did_ you bag, and does he have a brother?" Stacy asked, shaking her head in wonder.

I put my head in my hands.

I didn't know what I was supposed to do now. I had been carefully avoiding Jack ever since _that_ evening. He had obviously noticed my distance, but he hadn't tried to reach out to me. He hadn't knocked on my door to apologize, and I was grateful for that. You can't exactly say _sorry_ for your mental condition and it would've just made me feel guilty. We had seen each other on the stairs once, and I had nodded my head like a panicked horse and walked away at a sprint.

And now this.

Did he think it would make everything okay? Did he think replacing my laptop would patch things up? Did he – did he want us to still be friends?

Maybe he was just tying up loose ends. He was giving me these gifts to make up for what he'd damaged. But why hadn't he just sent me a new laptop? Why the roses and chocolates?

When I came home that evening, I was almost afraid to find him on the stairs or at my door, but he wasn't there. All was quiet.

I hauled the laptop inside and placed it gingerly on the kitchen island, marveling at its unblemished surface. I ran my fingers over it. It was almost silky to the touch. felt like the epitome of luxury. I ate all the chocolates too. They were fondants, filled with liquor and cream. My mouth and fingers got all sticky and sweet.

But the roses – the beautiful, lush roses I carried to his door. I deposited them on the threshold quietly. I somehow felt he should have them more than me.

I left a "thank you" note attached to it.

* * *

I woke up covered in rose petals from head to toe. They were everywhere. On my face, on my lips, between my thighs. I wasn't naked, though. This wasn't _American Beauty_.

But roses were falling from the ceiling in a crimson shower. Choking me. Gagging me. Pressing down on my esophagus. I arched my back like a cat, opening my mouth wider, giving them deeper access.

I woke up with a start.

My bedroom was dark. I could hear Jack pacing upstairs. I wondered if he'd taken the roses.

* * *

 _So first off thank you so much for all your wonderful reviews! I'm extremely humbled. Special thanks to anon Waterbird, because you basically get me 100%. Also, if you're wondering about that scene from Babe: Pig in the City, go on youtube and type "a parting shot pig in the city" and click on the first video that comes up. I know this chapter was maybe not as eventful, but the next one should have a lot of Joker/Julia goodness! Thank you and please review if you can!_


	8. Chapter 8

8.

Mrs. Patrick had asked me for a cup of tea. Well, I was also supposed to pay her this month's rent, but she hated to ask for it outright, so she came up with these little rendezvous. I didn't mind, especially since she usually served some scones with the tea. It's probably becoming apparent that I will do a lot of things for food.

"You know, I'm quite relieved you and Jack are getting along so well," she said, counting the bills surreptitiously under the table.

I looked up from my cup. I had no idea what I was supposed to say to that. It wasn't surprising that she'd noticed we were having regular meals together, but she probably didn't know we'd fallen out. I wasn't about to tell her. It was his private business, anyway.

"At first, I admit I was a little concerned for our community. He didn't seem to want to get to know us at all. I tried to start a conversation on many occasions, but the man wouldn't even say hello. He'd just pay me and leave in _perfect_ silence. Then again, I'm not a young and pretty thing like you, Julia. That must've done the trick," she commented with a coy little wink, as if we were both part of a conspiracy.

Mrs. Patrick was an endearing busybody who meant well, most of the time, but I wished she'd shut up for once. _Young and pretty._ That wasn't it at all. She had no clue.

"I don't want to toot my own horn, but it was my idea that you should say hello to him in the first place, remember?" she continued, oblivious to my discomfort. "Just goes to show what a little bit of neighborly friendliness can do. When he came to me asking for advice, I was honestly stunned!"

I think my face showed my utter disbelief, because she giggled with relish.

"Oh, of course you wouldn't know! Perhaps I shouldn't be telling…but he did come to me last week, asking about you, in fact. He wanted to get you something nice, but he just didn't know what you liked."

I wondered if having a heart attack all over Mrs. Patrick's tea and canasta table would be considered impolite. Because, _what_.

What was going on? Had the universe upended itself? Had I been transported to another dimension?

"Really?" I asked, my voice sounding like a balloon that had been popped by a needle.

"Oh, _yes_. He was really eager to please you, I felt. And oh, he sounded a little upset. I hope you two made up, whatever it was. Tell me, did he get you the roses and the fondants?"

"Yeah…he did."

"Oh, it's so exciting! We finally have some romance around here."

Romance? _Ha_. You mean the time he threw my laptop against the wall?

"It's not like that, Mrs. Patrick," I said, looking at the floor. "I just did him a favor and he was paying me back."

She waved her hand dismissively. "You two will work it out, I know it. I'm just glad he's not lonely anymore. Wasn't it so sad?"

"Yeah, I really have to go," I mumbled, getting up rudely without waiting for her to say goodbye. I didn't even get to eat a scone.

* * *

The wildly absurd scenario of Jack and Mrs. Patrick talking about me was enough to push me to take some action.

So I cornered him in the Laundromat one evening. Cornering is really overstating it. I merely didn't rush out of there when I saw him. Instead, I approached him with my best "this is totally normal" face.

Jack's eyes widened a fraction when he saw me stand next to his washing machine.

"So. Mrs. Patrick?"

His expression quickly changed to one of chagrin. His scars drooped down rather comically.

"She _told_ you," he muttered, clearly annoyed.

"She has a habit of doing that, yes."

He muttered something under his breath which sounded alarmingly like "should've pushed her down the stairs".

"Well, you _did_ go to her," I argued.

"…I didn't, uh, know who to ask. I couldn't just _give_ you the laptop."

My expression softened against my will. "Why not?"

"I broke your stuff, which is bad enough. But I, uh…also acted like an asshole."

His admission was strained and halting and a little reluctant, but I was touched that he would make the effort anyway.

"It wasn't your fault," I replied looking away. "I mean it was but…you couldn't exactly control your…" Shit. This is why I hadn't wanted an apology. There was really no way to address his mental problems without sounding like a moron. I winced and changed tacks. " _Thank you_ for the laptop. It's really great. More than great. It's the fanciest thing I own. I got so excited when I clicked on something and it loaded in less than half an hour."

Jokes. They really are a God-sent.

He nodded distractedly. "So why did you give me back the roses?"

I inhaled sharply. He was very good at catching me off guard. I remembered the dream quite vividly. Petals falling from the ceiling, slowly choking me to death, covering every inch of me. I felt my cheeks burning up, like I was back in fifth grade, or something equally foolish.

"I just…thought you should have them."

"Why?"

"I don't know, I guess you need them more," I said without thinking, but the odd thing was, it was _true_. We have a funny way of hitting upon the right conclusion without really processing it. Or maybe I had been processing it for days and this was the result.

But there it was. Jack needed more flowers in his life. More kindness, I guess. It was corny and real.

He didn't respond, he didn't even look at me. But I caught a ripple in his scars and his fingers seemed to crackle as they fiddled with the washing machine's timer.

"I'm going for a run tonight," he said all of a sudden, turning his back on me, as if that was somehow the ending to the conversation. I stood there awkwardly for a moment, watching him set the timer. When I realized he wasn't going to say more, I nodded to myself and walked away, knowing full well he had issued a covert invitation.

One I was going to, very unwisely, take.

* * *

The city was a mongrel of colors at this hour; the late pinks of dusk, storefront neon blues, white blurs from cars zipping down the street, the bright red shimmers of traffic lights. It was a wild eccentric rainbow, one that was hard to capture on paper, though I wanted to try. I sat outside the deli, at one of my usual tables with my usual slice of pizza, sketching.

I wasn't waiting for him. I pretended I wasn't anyway. I pretended I was here for the atmosphere. But I surreptitiously checked every figure rushing by and quietly labeled them as "not Jack".

I guess I'd gotten used to him; all those late night meals. I missed his company, although I couldn't really describe my feelings. I wasn't fond of him and I don't think I really liked him that way. It was something more serious than that, something almost _unpleasant_. Usually, you were supposed to feel good about your friends. But he made me feel responsible for something I had not done. I felt a strange affinity for him, which was more abstract than friendship…and definitely not what Mrs. Patrick had implied. No. No.

"What're you sketching?"

I almost dropped my notebook. _How_ did he manage to sneak up on me all the time?

Must be that stealth soldier training.

Jack was looking at me funny. I realized I'd said the last thing out loud.

"That good, huh?" he deadpanned.

I quickly buried my notebook in my purse. "You could've announced yourself."

"No fun in that."

"No fun in me jabbing this pencil in your chest either."

He stared at the pencil I was still holding in my hand, almost as if he were contemplating that scenario. "You an artist?"

The word sounded almost ridiculous coming from him.

"No…I just fool around. You know, when I have time to kill."

He didn't wait for me to finish, he just turned around and started walking at a fast pace. I hated that, I hated how he just picked up and left and expected people to follow. I sighed and rushed after him.

"Go a little slower, would you?"

"You shouldn't, uh, say stuff like that."

I frowned. "Stuff like what? 'Go a little slower'? I'm sorry but I'm not Speedy Gonzales-"

"Killing time. Time's precious, you know."

I tried to suppress my already bubbling irritation. Two minutes with him and I was already craving my previous loneliness.

"It's just a thing people say. I didn't really mean it."

"That's worse," he replied with a sidelong glance. "If you're gonna talk shit about something, at least mean it."

I rolled my eyes. "Are we going to discuss semantics all night?"

He smirked at that. "When'd you start drawing?"

I choked on my saliva. For a moment there, I almost thought he knew that I'd started drawing again because of him. But no, he was asking me in general. Must have.

"I was around eight."

His scars twitched. "Uh, _all_ eight-year olds draw."

I scowled. "No, all eight-year olds _color_. That's different. I didn't just crayon Cinderella's dress. I was serious about it."

"So. Not just killing time, huh?"

My scowl deepened. "It's an old hobby. Let's drop it."

He shrugged. "It's good to, uh, keep your hands busy."

I remembered what he'd told me about that. About his therapist. About his itch.

"Jack."

"Mm?"

The streetlamps turned his scars into deep valleys, like the cracks in a volcano.

"Are you taking any medication?"

It was a stab in the dark, an unnecessary risk, something I should've brought up much later in our budding relationship. But I did it anyway because the question was gnawing at me, like his clean and normal-looking and pill-free bathroom.

Jack stared up ahead for a brief moment and then he was on me before I could register what was happening.

I was pushed up against the grimy wall of a building, my back hitting the bricks with a sickening thud. His body invaded my private space so thoroughly that my throat closed up. He was all around me.

I was about to scream for him to let me go when I saw the bike wheezing past. It was one of those pizza-delivery things. It was going really fast. It hadn't seen us.

Jack rested one of his hands against the wall, right next to my head.

"Sorry. Had to think fast."

I released a deep breath. Something like a shudder. He must have felt it on his face. He was too close for comfort. His eyes surveyed me with a focus that made me feel like I was the only person alive. And everyone else was dead. Part of me wanted to say sorry for suspecting him, but another part wanted to say that he _enjoyed_ scaring me. It felt wrong, to doubt him. I knew he was coping with some serious trauma…but there was a sharpness to him that had nothing to do with his tragedy, whatever it was.

I suppose what I meant was, even without his scars, Jack might've terrified me.

But he also made my heart race, just a little.

"And no. Medication makes me fuzzy," he said, stepping back slightly, yet not removing his hand from the wall.

"Fuzzy?" I snorted in disbelief. Adrenaline was coursing through me still. "I'd take fuzziness over rage."

He cocked his head to the side. "Rage?"

I swallowed thickly. "I assume…that's what you're feeling when you…"

"When I break things?" he asked softly, and I felt the air between us shimmer. "Nah. The rage comes before that. Breaking is, uh, release."

"Did – did breaking the mirror offer you release?"

To my surprise, he chuckled. "No. But your laptop sure did."

I laughed a brittle laugh, trying to convince myself this was funny and lighthearted and not at all strange. "Hey, I got a new one out of this whole thing. So you're welcome to come and break my other stuff too."

The joke was a step too far and I knew it right away. His eyes darkened considerably, taking on a metallic shine. His body seemed to reach out, without touching me, making me feel exposed. There was no bike in sight. I tried not to breathe, not to move an inch. You never knew with him, what he'd do next. It was terrible. Terrible and exciting.

His scars rippled. "I'm not paying for your IKEA couch."

I snorted in disbelief. His lips twitched and his scars crinkled into a butterfly smirk. He'd diffused the tension with a joke.

But no, not really. Because while we were both smiling, the tension somehow remained intact, like a hydra whose heads keep growing back. I felt that any moment now, the fun would be over and he would do something I wouldn't be able to stop. My heart beat in my chest as he stepped away from me, and it kept beating even though the distance grew between us and we started walking again.

I was in trouble.

* * *

That night, I hummed Edith Piaf as I got into the shower and I thought about the clown and the pig and the fire. The moment when he'd lost control. There was such ugliness in the world. Some things were so grotesque, simply by design. But at one point, they stopped being grotesque. They became something else, something blurred, something _fuzzy_. You kind of wanted to dip your hand into that eerie pool, you wanted to see how deep it went. Would you drown?

I slowly lowered the shower head until I felt it against my thigh, and I thought of his scars and the way they would feel against me, against my skin. Would they scratch or tickle?

 _Jesus._

Afterwards, I felt ashamed. It had only been a deranged fantasy, nothing more. I was too lonely, that was it. I needed a boyfriend, or a random hook-up.

Maybe I just needed myself, in the shower. Thinking of him.

I was so predictable.

* * *

 _A/N: so this chapter was a bit filler-y? But next one will have a bit more action/stuff happening. Although, I pride myself on the fact that this story is more indie and mood-oriented. But the plot is slowly trickling in! I really want to thank you all again for these wonderful, thoughtful reviews, I'm always so overwhelmed by your kindness. For the anon Guest who liked the references, thank you, All Dogs Go to Heaven really is an underrated gem, and I love American Beauty too! Hope you enjoyed the chapter!_


	9. Chapter 9

9.

The next few days went by in a rush. Work was busy, since we were entering the Thanksgiving-Christmas shopping month of doom, and all hands had to be on deck. I didn't really have time to think about anything but jewelry, perfume and skin care products. In our department, we called them the big JPSCs, because they were always our biggest sales of the season. The JPSCs also came pre-packaged in ornamental yuletide bags at a fair discount. Who could resist?

Staffers usually got a JPSC bag too, a Christmas gift on behalf of our employer, although most people usually resold theirs. I used to ship it home to mom until she called me and said she wanted cash instead.

This year, I decided to give it to Mrs. Patrick. I felt that, what with recent events, maybe she deserved some cheer in her life. It _had_ been nice of her to suggest flowers and chocolates to Jack.

Speak of the devil, I ran into him on the stairs as I made my way up from Mrs. Patrick. He was going down to pay the rent.

"Give her a minute or two, she's _very_ emotional," I warned him in advance. She'd been so delighted with my gift she'd hugged me three times and _immediately_ proceeded to call her sister to tell her about it.

Jack nodded, stopping on the same stair as me, but I pretended to look elsewhere. I was ridiculously aware of the fact that a few nights ago he had almost pinned me against a wall and I had been all aflutter, like a schoolgirl with a crush. Which was not going to happen. I firmly rejected the notion. In fact, I was going to eliminate this weird bout of attraction from my system. I mean liking him as a friend was fine, but romanticizing our lukewarm relationship? No. He was a man struggling with mental illness, and I wasn't going to be the young ingénue who saves him from himself and shows him how beautiful the world can be. Because that's not how it works. It would be insulting for the both of us.

I just had to play it cool, be _normal_. Be a casual friend.

"Want to come over for dinner? I'm making strudel."

I was so wrapped up in my own head I didn't even register his invitation. "Who owns a poodle?"

He hummed in amusement. "Dinner. Strudel."

"Oh. Okay."

I kicked myself later for not saying no. But I didn't really want to say no.

* * *

Walking into his apartment again felt like stepping inside the cage of a lion. I stood in the doorway for a good minute before I finally entered properly. Jack didn't seem to mind. In fact, he'd made some changes to accommodate me.

"We're eating on the floor," he announced airily as he ambled towards the kitchen.

I noticed that he had cleared up the coffee table from the living room and pushed the couch against the wall, leaving a large, clear space in the middle. There, on the washed-out carpet I saw a chequered table cloth, red and white, like the kind you use for picnics, and on it, plates and cutlery and paper napkins.

"It's the best way to eat," he assured me casually as he returned with the steaming casserole. "Those Japs, uh, they know what they're doing."

I nodded halfheartedly. We both knew the real reason for his eccentric relocation. Nevertheless, I went and sat down on my spot on the floor. I had to take off my shoes in order to sit cross-legged comfortably. Jack was wearing a pair of comfy slippers. It was all kind of hilarious, but I didn't laugh.

I'd never been a fan of yoga, I'd never meditated or done the lotus position, so this new seating took some getting used to. I kept moving my butt back and forth in a very unladylike fashion.

"You, uh, comfortable?" he asked, crouching down to sit opposite me at the edge of the table cloth.

"I'll just go wash my hands," I said, for an answer. I'd already washed them downstairs, but I just wanted to get up and be alone for a moment.

It was a bit overwhelming, the whole thing.

Jack didn't say anything, although his scars drooped down, as if he understood.

I got up quickly and scurried down the hall. The bathroom was familiar to me by now with its clean, friendly appliances and fluffy mat. I shut the door behind me and lay on the toilet seat for a few moments, twiddling my thumbs.

I was annoyed that I couldn't seem to control the situation I was in. I'd accepted Jack's company again and I was in his apartment and I didn't want to leave. But I also did. How do you reconcile two warring instincts?

I rose and stood in front of the plastic mirror. My reflection seemed like a shadow without contour. I wasn't pretty, I wasn't ugly, I was just there, living somehow.

What was he doing in the living room right now? Tapping his foot? Waiting for me? Thinking I was going to bail on him? Would he care if I did?

I rubbed at some leftover mascara under my left eye. What drives us human beings? Guilt? Shame? Loneliness?

My stomach rumbled unpleasantly.

Oh, yeah. Hunger.

* * *

"Listen, I know I talk too much, as you've been nice to point out, but I gotta ask you something. It's important. So please be honest with me."

I'd settled back on my haunches after devouring half of an amazing cheese and ham strudel. I knew maybe I should've let sleeping dogs lie, but something was bugging me about this whole thing. Something about his invitation on the stairs had rung _false_. And looking back on it, all his invitations had been kind of strange. Even now, as he sat opposite me and shoveled food in his uneven mouth, he seemed devoid of comfort and ease. As if he'd much rather eat alone. And yet he didn't.

I didn't think I'd have the energy to ask him about it after I finished the strudel.

Jack put down his fork and leveled me with a look that did not bode well, but I lumbered on, regardless.

"I get that cooking is therapeutic for you. But why do you keep asking me to dinner? Why do you want to have me over? The first few times I was broke and you took pity on me. But then…why did you _still_ do it? I'm not trying to look a gift horse in the mouth, but you don't seem comfortable with this arrangement. Even when we watched movies together...you were far away most of the time."

Jack took a long time parsing through my rather complicated question, or rather, _questions_. I could hear the kitchen tap leaking from across the corridor, _drip, drip, drip_. The quiet made my toes curl inside my socks.

"I didn't take pity on you," he said at length, staring at one of his slippers which had glided off his foot.

"Then _why_?" I insisted, determined to get something out of him. I wasn't fishing for compliments. I wasn't hoping for a "you make my day better" kind of spiel. I was confused about the mixed signals he was sending me. I wanted to draw a line and see where we stood. Yeah, I could readily admit I _liked_ Jack, but I didn't want to be friends with someone who felt I was a burden.

"I'm not, uh, comfortable around anyone these days," he managed, after a while, noticing my unyielding stare.

"Okay, so don't force yourself to be."

"I'm not." He frowned, turning his head sideways. "Why do you need to have everything explained?"

"Because I'm slow that way," I deadpanned.

His short chuckle tapered in the silence.

"Well?" I tried again.

Jack got up clumsily and shambled towards the kitchen. I was left there, kneeling on the floor, mouth slightly ajar, wondering if he'd come back with a knife or something and tell me to get lost. Underwhelmingly, he returned with two cans of beer.

He loomed over me, holding out a can.

"No, I'm good."

His stare bore into my very skull, compelling me to take it. So I took the damn can. It was cold to the touch, made my fingers tingle.

He settled back down on the table cloth, legs crossed.

"Last time," he began after taking a strong gulp, "it wasn't good, living alone."

I took a tentative sip. "Last time?"

He nodded. "Back at my old place, I, uh, kept to myself, didn't talk to anyone. Avoided the neighbors. This was a year ago."

I waited patiently, watching his face with rapt attention.

"One night, I had an…incident. I dislocated my shoulder and almost choked on my own vomit."

My eyebrows shot up in shock. How did one _achieve_ something like that?

"There was, uh, no one to help me," he continued, gripping his can, oblivious to my reaction. "I could handle the physical pain. I set my shoulder back on my own. Took a bunch pain killers. But it was a long night. I kept…I kept wanting to hurt myself."

I stood very still, afraid that any movement on my part might break his flow. This was the most he'd ever spoken succinctly.

"I told myself I wouldn't relive that night again. Told myself it was gonna be different at the new place. But I was still, uh, not talking to anyone. Boxing myself in, as they say. Until that night when I…you know…"

I knew. He'd broken the mirror.

"That's when you, uh, _dropped_ by," he continued with a wry smile. "And I had something to do for a change."

"You mean stitch a foot?" I asked, unable to help myself.

His smile stretched slovenly. "Pretty much."

His expression folded in on itself, turning serious again. "But it's not the action itself. It's doing it for someone else that counts. Suddenly, it uh, has a purpose. So you came by with the mirror, and I cooked for you. And it felt, uh – well, it felt _calm_. I was calm. So I cooked for you again and it helped. It became like a regimen... something I could control. Beats pills, anyway."

I shook my head, still midway to grasping what he meant.

"So what you're telling me is I'm your medication," I said eventually.

He shrugged. "Don't believe you can ever be _cured_ , but, uh, sure. You're a good placebo."

"I'm…flattered?" I trailed off, feeling incredibly stupid. How was I supposed to take this, as a compliment, as a great responsibility, as a joke?

"You see now I didn't take pity on you," he continued, driving home a point. "I used you. Still am using you."

I looked down at my half-eaten strudel. "That makes two of us, I guess."

"How's that?"

"Well, I replace your pills, and you replace my fridge… and microwave and cash… and need to feed myself."

I chuckled at my own wording and he joined me momentarily, as if we were sharing a laugh about some funny thing we'd read in the paper.

And that's when I felt it. As my eyes lifted to meet his, I felt a jolt like a string from a trap, a piece of wire wrapping around my fingers and stretching forward to wrap around his, connecting us somehow, tugging us forward. An understanding.

I think that might've been one of those crucial moments, where your next move decides everything. Your whole future. If I had said something clumsy and maudlin and clichéd, like "I don't know what happened to you in the past, but it wasn't your fault", he would've probably shut me out eventually, and all this would be meaningless.

I mean, the guy had just candidly admitted he had felt compelled to hurt himself. I could have told him "I'm here for you, I don't want you to hurt yourself again, people care about you." But that would have been false. I didn't _know_ any other people who cared for him. I had no idea what fucked up shit he'd done in the Army. And while I'd feel bad if he hurt himself, I couldn't exactly stop him.

So instead, I said, "Chess."

"Huh?"

"You said you never learned how to play chess."

He didn't need me to specify further, his eyes glinted with remembrance. Our first dinner, when I brought the mirror.

"Well, we probably won't be watching movies again," I continued tentatively. "So…we could do that instead."

His scars did a funny somersault. "You can't play chess and hold a fork."

"I meant after dinner. You know, play a game or two. Keep your hands busy."

"Hm. Am _I_ the charity case now?"

"No way," I replied with a nervous laugh. "I've booked that spot for the next month solid."

He smiled, or at least I think he did. It was always a game of make-belief with his face.

"What do you say? Want to beat me at chess?" I asked playfully, ignoring my churning stomach, ignoring the feeling I got that Jack wouldn't be able to outlast his own destructive instincts, in the end.

Something in my tone made him pause. I hadn't meant for it to sound provocative, but I realized suddenly that we were both leaning forward across the table cloth. Like we were sharing a secret. Oh, God, was I flirting?

"I'd love to beat you at chess," he replied with precision, his eyes scouring me with their fixed intensity. Like he could see the very marrow on my bones.

I felt a knot in my throat. I swallowed it down and smiled.

* * *

 _A/N: so it's currently almost 5 AM where I live, which is an ungodly hour for me, but I just felt the urge to finish the chapter sooner rather than later. I'm so incredibly grateful for your reviews, thank you so much for reading, and I hope this chapter didn't weird you out too much. Let me know how you feel about it!_


	10. Chapter 10

10.

"Are you sure I can move the Knight there? Hang on, I'll just check real quick."

Jack issued a frustrated sigh as I once again lunged for my library copy of _Chess for Dummies._

"The book will tell you I'm right," he muttered, pilfering some peanuts from the bowl next to the chessboard.

"You don't know that, we've only been playing for a week."

"Yeah…and the Knight goes to c5," he said through mouthfuls of peanuts.

"Ugh, this letter system is honestly confusing. Or maybe I'm slow," I complained, flipping the pages at random. Jack didn't bother to correct me.

You'd think _Chess for Dummies_ would be simple, but they also provided information like _Paul Morphy versus Duke Karl of Braunschweig and Count Isouard_ , a famous chess game I was pretty sure I'd never replicate or be that interested in.

"Okay, ha!" I bellowed triumphantly, "you're wrong, I can't move it to c5 because then you'd just take it with your Queen, which you suspiciously freed during the last move."

I shoved the page in his face for proof. Jack squinted at the sketch provided there and shrugged.

"Technically…it's an L-formation, so, uh, you can move the Knight to c5. Now, _should_ you move the Knight to c5? That's another matter." His fractured grin looked more smug than usual.

He'd won most of our games so far, and we _both_ sucked, so that was an indication of my appalling skills. I just couldn't think ahead, which was the whole point of chess. Keeping up with one or two moves was difficult enough. Having to plan beyond that was torture.

"You sound like those teachers who scold you for using "can" instead of "may"," I muttered, letting my Knight get eaten by his Queen.

"Don't look glum," he said, stuffing more peanuts in his slanted mouth. "My Queen's in the open. You, uh, got a solid shot."

And indeed, there seemed to be an opening if I just moved one of the Bishops away from one of the Pawns.

Jack was watching me formulate my attacks.

"You should really work on your poker face."

I frowned, shifting on my spot on the floor. My muscles were aching. "We're not playing poker."

"Yeah…well, I can read your next moves on your face."

I stuck out my tongue. "Read this."

He chuckled, the sound springing from a deep chamber in his lungs, like steam from an engine.

"Okay, let me take your Queen," I demanded, fingering my Pawn.

Jack raised both eyebrows in alarm.

I shrugged. "Hey, I let you take my Knight."

"You didn't, uh, let me. You _lost_ your Knight."

"Come ooon," I whined, "just let me take your Queen. Just this once."

"No," he shook his head, arching his back like a cat. He was so lithe in his movements, I sometimes forgot he used to be military. But I suppose being nimble comes in handy in a warzone.

"Please, I want to win this," I persisted. Childishly, I knew but I wanted the final game of the night to end with me as winner.

"No cheats under this roof," he refused me mulishly.

" _Fine_. Guess I'll do it the hard way," and I reached out and grabbed his Queen off the chessboard.

He didn't exactly gasp, but his mouth issued a swishing noise, like paper being crumpled and crushed. His eyes glared at me. I'd obviously committed a foul crime by his standards.

"Just kidding," I mumbled, not wanting to raise his hackles. I'd chosen chess because it was supposed to be cerebral; the opposite of powerful emotions.

I was going to put the piece back – but then _he_ grabbed _my_ Queen from the board.

I blinked.

Jack held the piece in his fist.

"Hey! Put it back."

"You put mine back first."

"No, you put mine back first."

"No, you first."

"No, _you_."

"Both, at the same time," he settled diplomatically.

We both eyed each other suspiciously as we settled the pieces back on the board. Unfortunately, a sudden crick in my knee (I'd been cutting off circulation from it for too long) made me jerk and before I knew it, I'd turned over the whole chessboard.

Pieces flew in various directions on the carpet, both white and black.

Jack watched them with almost rapt fascination.

I put a palm over my mouth. "Oops."

He shook his head and some strands of hair fell into his face. I'd noticed he'd recently let his hair grow again. He was getting rid of the buzz cut. I felt oddly responsible for it, even though I knew that wasn't the case. Still, it looked nice. I mean, it was just an objective observation.

"I was going to win anyway," he remarked with noted superiority.

I made a face.

"Technically, I took your Queen first, so I win."

Jack leveled me with a searing look, but I knew him well enough by now to know there was little anger behind it. Most of it was just a tunnel-like intensity that few people could actually bear. Jack paid attention to you one hundred percent, and we're generally not used to that kind of focus.

"You know…your version of chess is, uh, kind of juvenile."

"You're just sour you lost," I pointed out glibly.

He heaved a sigh. There was the ghost of a smile on his ruined mouth. "I'm starting to miss _The Secret of NIMH_."

I rolled my eyes and said nothing, because I didn't know if it was safe to talk about the past.

We both started picking up the chess pieces to put them back in the case.

Our fingers brushed against each other a couple of times, whether on purpose or not, and it made me nervous. I wasn't scared of Jack; I was more scared of myself, of acting like a moron around him.

 _Keep it in your pants, Julia._

"Hey, what time is it?" I asked to distract myself. I was trying to get up from the floor, but I'd forgotten about my benumbed knee.

I stumbled and almost fell back on my face but Jack caught me in time. He gripped me by the tender flesh under my armpits and I hissed in pain. Both of my legs had fallen asleep, so he had to support me with his weight. He snaked a hand around my waist and pulled me up against him.

"Guess this whole sitting on the floor thing is not, uh, ideal."

I stared up at him on wobbly legs. It was kind of hilarious how much I looked like the eye-fluttering damsel in distress.

The grouch in me pulled back a little from his arms. I wasn't going to let my hormones take over. "I'll manage."

But in truth, I needed a bit more time for the blood to start circulating in my legs again.

Jack didn't let me go, thankfully.

We stood there, in the middle of his living room, staring at each other. Me, trying not to collapse on my comatose legs like some cartoon character. Him, acting like the boy scout who'd been taught to help old ladies cross the street.

I wondered if the stench of deodorant and sweat was coming from me. I sniffed at the air suspiciously. He smelled like food, since he'd recently cooked. Oh, man, I was the culprit.

"Um, I didn't get a chance to shower before coming up here."

Jack raised an eyebrow at me. "And?"

"You're probably getting a…garden variety of my scents."

Jack started to slowly sway my body left and right, as if we were dancing to some invisible music. It sent tiny ripples down my spine, which actually might've been due to my lower body being momentarily incapacitated.

"To get the blood pumping," he explained indifferently. "And I've smelled worse."

"Thanks for that," I quipped, feeling more embarrassed, if possible. "Actually my shower's broken. I need to talk to Mrs. Patrick about it, I just didn't get the chance."

Jack looked down at me. "Why didn't you say so?"

* * *

Okay, I hadn't said that to get a free shower out of him, I swear. I'd just wanted to let him know I usually _do_ shower. In case he was wondering.

But it's not like I had a say in it once he found out. He dragged me straight to the bathroom.

"There's fresh towels inside. I'll bring a bathrobe. You, uh, get under the spray."

"Jack, this is really not necessary, I don't want to trespass on your–"

"You're trespassing on my patience," he replied, motioning me inside.

I could walk a bit now, although my legs still wobbled. Damn lotus position. A Buddhist monk I'd never be.

I closed the bathroom door behind me and stripped quickly, eager to get behind the shower curtains. He had the thick kinds. Good.

To be completely honest, I was _so_ craving a hot shower. When I got home that day from work and realized mine was broken I wanted to cry so hard until I managed to clean my body with the tears.

I clambered into the tub with the grace of a hippopotamus and turned on the tap.

It was quite heavenly. There was even scented shampoo.

I tried not to enjoy myself too much; I was going to make it quick and short, I wasn't going to waste his water. But I found myself lulled by the steam and the relaxing jet pouring down my back. The shampoo, too, smelled like coconuts.

I didn't hear him come in with the bathrobe.

Although I was secure behind the shower curtains, I turned the tap off quickly and dropped the shower head.

"Sorry."

"For what?" he asked, standing only a few inches away from me. I could vaguely see his shape through the curtains. My nakedness was suddenly an extremely salient factor in the current circumstances.

"I wasn't singing, was I?" I joked, blinking away the water from my eyes. "It's what people do in the shower."

"Only if you're an asshole," he remarked starkly.

I huffed. "Well, I'll be getting out now."

And I should've followed up on that. Except my legs were still a bit tingly with numbness. You can really tell our P.E. programs have failed us, since most of us are in such bad shape. Well, that could also stem from having to stand up all day at work.

I could see that it would take me a while to get out of the slippery tub without killing myself in the process.

Jack had anticipated as much.

I didn't even have time to shriek as he pulled back the shower curtains.

He was holding the bathrobe in front of him, blocking most of his view.

But it was still really embarrassing, at least on my side of the robe.

I looked down at my flabby body which had seen better days and I tried not to be too self-conscious about it. He couldn't see anything.

I slid forward and let him wrap the bathrobe around me. Then I leaned on his shoulder as he pulled me out of the bath.

I felt like I was in a Jodie Foster movie about some incurable illness.

Jack didn't seem to care, one way or another. He maneuvered me the way you maneuver a child. Except his grip was a little too tight for comfort.

I stood in his arms for a second time that night, except soaking wet, with only a bathrobe between us.

Okay, maybe this was that _other_ Jodie Foster movie, the one where Harvey Keitel is her pimp.

"No more sitting on the floor for you," he decreed solemnly.

"It's fine, I like it," I assured him, feeling my cheeks turning redder with each passing moment.

"You clearly can't handle it," he assessed sardonically.

I rested my hands on his arms in faux-despair and put on a wonky Southern accent. "Bless ma lucky stars you were here, kind Sir, otherwise I woulda gone straight to the dogs. Why, I'd simply float away if you didn't hold little ol' me up."

My Scarlett O'Hara impression did not seem to faze him, although I caught the usually amused look in his eye.

"Fine, let's see how you fare on your own," he replied. And he let go of me completely.

I was really lucky I grabbed onto the towel rack on my way down.

"Hey - !"

Jack stepped back, admiring his work.

I was splayed out on my knees, arms above my head, holding onto the metal rod for dear life.

I noticed Jack's gaze as it followed the line of my twisted body. His eyes acquired a dark sheen as they landed on my chest.

Shit.

The bathrobe had split open during the altercation, and I was now generously exposing my bust to him. _Shit._

I wanted the ground to swallow me.

His gaze was uninterrupted, following the slope of my breasts with something like violence. I couldn't describe it. It was as if he wanted to rip into my flesh with just his eyes. It didn't feel like lewd voyeurism, it was something foreign, a kind of venom.

My throat dried up. I was going to say something smart and cutting like, "take a picture, it'll last longer", but he turned away before I got the chance.

"See yourself out when you're done," he said coolly, though not angrily. His fists, I noticed, were clenched. He left the bathroom quietly. I heard his footsteps down the hall. He reached his bedroom and shut the door behind him.

I stood there on the floor like a dumb puppet whose strings had been cut.

* * *

Eventually, I got up and toweled myself off with no further incidents. I put on my clothes and slipped out into the hall. The lights had been turned off. The whole place looked closed for visitors.

I frowned. Jack could've said good night, at least. His abrupt departure was not exactly out of character, but it did leave me puzzled. He was never this rude to me. Yes, we'd had an embarrassing incident, but I was trying to put it behind me.

I was almost tempted to knock on his bedroom door. Almost.

I left his apartment with the familiar feeling that I had missed something.

Unbidden thoughts came into my head. Maybe Jack hadn't seen a naked body in a while, maybe he hadn't had sex in a while - which was none of my business.

I absolutely shouldn't sleep with him. Ever.

I almost laughed as I climbed down the stairs. That was unlikely to happen anyway. Now that he'd seen the "goods", I doubt he was tempted. Oh, God, would I be able to look him in the eye tomorrow? And what would I find there? Contempt or shame? Probably neither. Jack didn't seem to operate in binaries.

I shoved a hand in my pocket and came upon something smooth and solid. His Queen. Somehow, I hadn't put it back with all the pieces. I don't know if I'd done it on purpose, but I was surprised it had survived the evening.

I stared at it for a while, then I put it back in my pocket.

* * *

 _A/N: updating at an ungodly hour again, because my muse is a fickle mistress. Thank you so much for your reviews, they push me to write more and better. I hope you enjoyed the chapter! To Waterbird, Nick Drake is a fantastic musical choice for the story and to maria, I'm incredibly humbled, thank you! _


	11. Chapter 11

11.

This year, _Gracie's_ was holding a Christmas raffle and all of the employees had to participate by chipping in five dollars. It was a new idea from corporate, something about encouraging team spirit and holiday fun. We later found out it was a practical initiative to get rid of some of the 'damaged wares' we kept in storage. It was actually perfectly good merchandise with a few flaws in fabrication that only the very snobbish would notice. But they were deemed unsellable to the general public, so they sold them to us, the plebs.

The prizes ranged from shiny sets of kitchen knives to funky umbrellas that lit up when it rained. No one was that excited about the items, until our boss told us that the big prize – the proverbial jackpot – was two tickets to the Gotham Metropolitan for the Christmas concert.

That definitely raised our spirits. Suddenly, the raffle was no longer an idle corporate distraction, but a game to be won. Stacy and I submitted our names and our cash with a keen sense that we both deserved those tickets. As did the rest of the staff. Everyone was suddenly destined to be a winner.

I had never been to the Gotham Metropolitan Concert Hall. I know, you're _shocked_. I could never afford it.

I had something to look forward to. The season was beginning to feel magical for once.

I wanted to tell Jack, but I was not sure how to bring it up. Conversation had been a little stilted since the bathroom incident. Neither of us had mentioned it afterwards, but it was like a pebble stuck in a bottleneck, an embarrassing inconvenience.

We returned to playing chess clumsily, but I didn't give back his Queen. I kept it in a drawer next to my bed. If Jack guessed I had taken it (and he must have), he didn't call me up on it. He simply replaced it with a wooden salt shaker. The board looked funny now. It was our private joke. But it was our private anxiety too.

As long as I kept the Queen locked up downstairs, we could also ignore that he had seen some of my nakedness. I don't know why the two were connected in my head, but they were.

There's something about breasts. They're more intimate than the genitalia, I think. You can picture a baby's mouth around them. Their flesh is soft like dough and they are slack against gravity. The nether regions, in contrast, are compact and elastic and usually covered by hair. He'd seen something of my softness. But I'd seen some of his in the past few months, so maybe we were even.

In any case, the concert didn't come up until the night before the raffle winners were announced.

We were eating take-out noodles – he'd been too tired to cook – as we moved around the pieces on the board halfheartedly.

"What's your favorite Christmas song?" I asked, stifling a yawn.

Jack glided his Rook up and down a row, trying to decide where to place it. "…I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know?"

"I don't remember."

"You don't remember?" I echoed with a snort. "How's that possible?"

"I forgot some of the things I used to like," he replied evenly, tapping one finger against his chin. He settled the Rook next to my King.

"But if you like something, it doesn't just go away," I argued, moving his Rook back a few squares. Yes, our version of chess was pretty irresponsible.

"Mm…it's kicked out," he said, pushing my King in front of his Bishop. "Vacuum-cleaned."

"Vacuum-cleaned?"

"To, uh, make room for useful furniture," he explained.

The metaphor was lost on me.

"I think that's called a lobotomy, and it's pretty illegal."

Jack laughed with a grunt. "It's the modern age. We don't do lobotomies with ice-picks anymore."

"What do we do them with?" I asked, taking some of his pawns off the board.

"Engineering," he said, matter-of-factly.

I scratched the soles of my feet. "Is this one of those conspiracies about genetically modified food?"

Jack tipped over one of my Knights with a peon. "Picture your head is this living room. Can you do that?"

"Why?"

"Just do it. Or it is too hard?"

I rolled my eyes. "I think I can manage."

"Could've, uh, fooled me."

I launched a peon at his head but he ducked in time. "So, uh, let's say you rent this room out to a random stranger. Let's say he's in the beauty business."

I laughed. "Okay?"

"He's trying to set up a beauty spa in this room," he continued, undeterred. "What changes would he, uh, have to make?"

I cast my eyes around the modest but somewhat cramped living room. It was clean and sad and it smelled of dust.

"Jeez, where to start?"

"Exactly," he nodded. "You'd have to renovate… _a lot_. It's still this one room, but you'd have to upend everything."

I blinked. The allegory made perfect sense somehow.

"That's, uh, engineering, and we all do it on others and others do it on us."

I picked up the salt-shaker-Queen and moved it across the board. "So what you're saying is that, we pick and prod inside people's heads, trying to change their outlook."

"I prefer to call it engineering. It's, uh, pathological. We can't help it. Your parents, your friends, the people you work with…even me. We all want a different kind of room from you."

I pressed my hand to my temple. "But what about me? What room do I want from me?"

"That's the million-dollar question, isn't it? What are you left with ...when no one's there?" he pondered, picking up my King and placing it in the center of the board.

"What's _your_ room like when no one's there?"

Jack flexed his fingers. "Mmm. It's got a big water-fountain in the middle with fat baby Cupids around."

I laughed at him. "Cherubs? Really?"

"Maybe a dolphin too."

We had somehow gotten away from my original question. He'd probably meant that to happen. I persisted. "Well, Christmas songs are easy to remember once you listen to them."

"Are you driving to a point?" he asked with his usual dose of impatience and precision.

So I told him about the raffle.

"I know it's a long shot, but I was thinking if I won, we could…go together? It could be nice. I've never been to the Metropolitan."

Jack started cleaning up the board and placing the pieces inside. The game was over.

"I don't know…if I'm fit for it."

" _Oh_. Oh, no. You're right, of course."

"Being in public with my…" he trailed off, pointing at his jagged scars.

Stupid, stupid, _stupid_. How could I have forgotten about that? Well, it actually wasn't that hard. It sounds odd, but when I looked at his face the scars were…not always there for me, in the sense that I could ignore them and focus on the rest of him. I could almost recreate his old mouth from impossible memory.

I'd erased his scars in my mind just like someone had erased his favorite Christmas song.

I felt mortified, so I quickly dismissed the whole thing. "Never mind. I don't care too much. I won't win anyway."

He didn't seem to believe me, because he offered me some leftover blueberry crumble.

I ate two whole pieces while we sat in companionable silence.

* * *

My apartment seemed smaller than before. I walked through each room, feeling out the floor like a toddler learning to walk. I tried to think about strangers walking in and out, taking my belongings and dropping them haphazardly, changing the geography, marking their territory, pushing me out of my own head. Mom asking me to turn the room into a charity bank for her personal use. The father I'd never even met, stomping in, stripping the walls bare and taking the couch with him. Dennis, my first boyfriend, shaved on one side of his head, spraying graffiti on the fridge. Cara and her husband-to-be dropping plastic jewelry on the bed. My old boss at the gas station who groped me under my T-shirt, taking a dump in my bathroom without even flushing.

It all sickened me momentarily.

But there was also something light about it, like a brilliance, like I was flimsy and porous and no one could hurt me, no matter how hard they tried.

* * *

I didn't win the tickets. I won a funky umbrella that lights up when it rains.

Arthur from the pharmacy aisle who is fifty-eight and looking forward to retirement would be delighted to take his wife to the Christmas concert.

Stacy and I sat at the jewelry counter in low spirits, trying to conceal our envy without much success.

"I mean, _look_ at him. He belongs in a hospital, not a concert hall. Life's so unfair sometimes," she muttered, toying with my funky umbrella. She was saddled with a pair of calipers.

"Cheer up," I said. "Maybe he'll break a hip on the stairs."

We were definitely not charitable to poor Arthur even though under different circumstances, we were pretty fond of his antics. This is why corporate should just leave Christmas alone. We all become greedy monsters.

* * *

I moped around for a few days. There was no point in getting a Christmas tree. I'd made an effort a couple of years back but it was a silly expense and not very eco-friendly, all things considered. The place would be riddled with needles well after I'd gotten rid of it.

Christmas lights were also just a pointless burden and waste of electricity. I mean they did look pretty up against the wall but they would depress me in the long run. They'd just remind me of work. To hell with the festivities. I'd just lie in bed and watch _Cheers_ on my shiny new laptop.

I was in the process of doing just that, nursing a jar of peanut butter in my pajamas when there was a loud knock on my door. Oh God, I hoped it wasn't Mrs. Patrick with a Christmas roast.

The knock persisted.

I shuffled wearily to the door. "If you're a caroler, you're wasting your time."

It was Jack. I didn't expect him.

He was…I blinked a couple of times. He was dressed in a pair of smart trousers. My eyes traveled upwards, taking in his apparel. A white shirt and a light jacket completed the ensemble. It was casual, but elegant. It was like whiplash. My eyes physically hurt from staring at something so incongruous.

I wondered if he was playing a prank on me or if that peanut butter was expired and I was undergoing some food poisoning hallucinations.

He walked past me into my apartment. And I realized he'd never actually been down here before. I always went up to his.

"So, come on, get dressed. We have to be there at 8 sharp."

"What?"

He surveyed me with a critical eye. "You can't wear your Sailor Moon sweatpants to the Metropolitan."

It took me a few moments to corroborate statements with facts. I opened my mouth in shock.

" _No_! No way! You -?"

He pulled out two tickets from his pocket and waved them in front of my face in a disgruntled fashion.

"Oh my God!"

I jumped at him like a manic squirrel, but stopped right before I pulled him into a hug. He didn't like to be touched, I remembered, and this kind of euphoria might set off his alarms.

I was standing only inches away, though, staring at his clean white shirt. I couldn't believe it.

He stared at me for a moment and then he raised his hand and swiveled my shoulder towards the bedroom. "Get dressed or I change my mind."

* * *

To say I didn't own many formal dresses would be a gross understatement. I had one modest green dress that had once fitted me loosely when I was sixteen but now cut off my circulation at the elbows. It would have to do. I pulled on some woolen tights to guard from the cold. I brushed my hair repeatedly, trying to untangle a few stubborn knots. Did I have any perfume? Scratch that; was there any decent deodorant left?

I scrambled through my drawers and cobbled up the items in need. I found a pair of small earrings, pearl-imitation. It would have to do. When the whole thing was complete, I inspected myself in the too small mirror by standing up on the bed. I looked like Santa's helping elf, but it wasn't half bad. Certainly an improvement on the last time I wore it at prom.

* * *

"What do you think?"

I twirled in front of him, losing some of my footing in the process. How did ballerinas do it?

Jack cocked his head to the side. His black eyes were gleaming with some form of mischief.

"You look like Santa's elf."

* * *

In the cab, I grew nervous all of a sudden. This was a luxury in itself. I couldn't remember the last time I hadn't ridden the bus or the train.

The cab driver hadn't stared at Jack's scars, but it wasn't like he could get a good look over his shoulder and the inside was dark. What happened when we arrived at the concert hall? Would people stare? I felt anxious on his behalf. Could we do this? It had seemed easy a few minutes ago.

What if I had pushed him like an idiot and this was a mistake?

Well, _he_ had decided to surprise me. So maybe he knew what he was doing.

He was staring out the window, his jawline taut.

I stretched my hand across the gap between us and touched his arm over his coat.

He didn't flinch. He seemed carved out of stone in that moment, just staring out at the world through a foggy window. I pictured a marble water-fountain with cherubs and dolphins.

"Are you OK?"

He turned towards me in slow-motion, and like the Cheshire Cat, his mouth materialized before his face. His scars like a delicate web of diamonds.

I wanted to say, _they look beautiful_. But that would be half a lie. And if it was the whole truth, it wouldn't be something he'd want to hear.

"I'm here, aren't I?"

The working struck me as ambivalent and a little disingenuous but I didn't have time to dwell on it. We were in Cathedral Square in no time, staring at the domes and towers rising around us, a history of opulence and good fortune. Then we turned left on Grand Avenue and the steps of the Metropolitan became visible. I hitched a breath and squeezed his arm tight.

His coarse fingers danced across my knuckles. "Don't chicken out on me now, Florres."

I laughed in short fits and pulled my hand away.

Outside, the sky was laden with fat lilac clouds, a portent of snow. It would be the first of the season.

Jack paid the driver and got out first. He walked over to my side, waiting by the sidewalk.

It's funny, I had a mad instinct to tell the driver to just _go_. Drive me away. It's like when you're at the summit of a mountain, looking down from a dizzying height, feeling compelled to jump just to end the uncertainty.

But I didn't, of course. I opened the door and took hold of Jack's arm. He was a slippery buoy in the sea, but I didn't let go.

He had wrapped a chequered scarf around his throat which he now pulled up over his chin. It did a rather poor job of hiding his scars, but at least it distracted the eye. With my big woolen beanie and his half-concealed face, we looked like domestic terrorists who were about to set the place on fire. But we felt confident enough to walk towards the Roman columns.

The other concert goers were climbing up the steps, absorbed in their own affairs. At first, only a few spared us a scattered glance.

But once we were inside and a porter asked to take our coats to the cloakroom, the jig was up.

Everyone else, it seemed, had put on the kind of clothes you'd feel proud to leave on a hanger in the foyer. Lots of furs and minks and tailored gowns.

Jack had managed to keep his scarf around his mouth for the entirety of our reception, but the usher was sending him some pointed looks, so he had to peel it away eventually.

That's when the surreptitious stares and low whispers began. Their eyes enveloped us, like a swarm of insects in a glass jar. They didn't mean us harm, they were just curious.

We probably looked like mangled tourists from a war-ravaged country. But we were here, and we had a _right_ to be here, just like everyone else.

I tried to distract him by pointing at the ceiling.

"Look how beautiful." Everything was gilded leaves and painted swans and lush rococo.

Jack nodded gruffly and slid his hand around my waist, pulling me forwards towards the amphitheater.

I felt a small pleasant shiver as his hand lingered there.

When I turned my head over my shoulder I saw a bit of commotion at the entrance where a gorgeous woman in a silver dress was discarding her coat. I recognized her companion from the magazines and the photos. It was Bruce Wayne, the billionaire playboy.

I nudged Jack playfully. "I think everyone will start looking at him and his date and ignore us."

He glanced sideways at the famous billionaire who was already surrounded by people trying to shake his hand. Jack only wrinkled his nose in response.

"Come on, let's find our seats," he murmured, close to my ear.

* * *

 _A/N: finally got this chapter out! it was a bit longer than my usual, so I had to do some extra polishing. I guess this is what the kids call a cliff-hanger, but I'm hoping to update sooner this time. Thank you once again for your lovely reviews, I'm always so happy to read them. I hope you liked this chapter!_


	12. Chapter 12

12.

Our seats were on the ground floor in one of the middle rows where, Jack said, the acoustics would be better. You don't want to sit _too_ close to the orchestra. I was fawning over every little detail and didn't really care where we sat as long as we were there. I admired the architecture for a while longer until the lights were subtly dimmed and we were bathed in a calm sopoforic light that reminded one of winter. It was the sort of light you'd see in a cozy Parisian attic at dusk, or so I liked to think.

The stage was lit a dramatic crimson. All the players looked _so_ serious as they tuned their instruments and leafed through their arpeggios.

I craned my neck and looked up at the ceiling which was now lost in darkness, and I felt so small and happy.

Jack sat next to me expectantly, neither relaxed nor tense, like someone waiting outside the doctor's office. But he was far more at ease now that he was in semi-darkness and away from prying eyes. Our immediate neighbors were still caught up in conversation and browsing through their programs so they hadn't gotten a good look at him yet. Once the lights dimmed entirely, they probably wouldn't get the chance. I wanted to squeeze his hand to tell him I was there for him, but I felt the gesture would be deemed a little cheesy at this point.

I knew focusing on him too much would make him feel uncomfortable, so I scanned the private boxes above us instead, cataloguing the famous and the rich and their eye-popping wardrobe. I caught a flash of a silver skirt which I thought must belong to Bruce Wayne's ravishing date. I was a tiny bit excited I was in the same room with all those big-shots, I'll admit. I knew the chances of us talking to any of them were close to zero, but it was nice to share the same world for one evening.

Then the music started and all my previous considerations were forgotten. I'd studied the program briefly and knew that the first piece was something by Liszt, something Christmas-themed, presumably, but that was the end of my guesswork, because I did not care; I was entranced by the heavenly sounds coming from the orchestra. Nothing compares to raw sound, coming at you as it is being made. It was thrilling, like standing in the middle of the storm, like floating on the cusp of a giant wave. The music surrounded you from all sides. I could hardly blink. If my body moved at all, I felt I would be missing a precious moment. So I stood immobilized, on the edge of my seat, as if I was about to launch myself towards the ceiling. It was so beautiful, I wanted to cry.

It took me a while to come down from this auditory trance. In fact, I only did so out of a guilty conscience. Here I was enjoying myself while Jack was probably feeling a great deal of discomfort. I wanted to see if he was all right. I was worried that the music, while beautiful, might be too much for him. But when I turned my head to glance at him, I almost gave a start.

He was staring at me.

I was alarmed, at first, thinking that something had gone wrong, but his gaze was not blank, the way it usually was when he was undergoing a violent episode. It was contemplative.

I smiled at him shyly and he nodded and turned away, as if satisfied with what he'd seen.

But when I returned my gaze to the orchestra, I saw from the corner of my eye that he was watching me again. I wondered why he did, and if he'd done that from the start.

Soon I was lost in the music again and it didn't seem to matter. It was only a small concern at the back of my mind.

* * *

The ending came too soon. After the last notes expired, I could still hear their echo in my head, the last remnants of an enchanted world.

By then we were supposed to get out of our seats and vacate the hall. Jack tapped me lightly on the arm.

"The lights are up. Come on, kid."

"Wasn't that beautiful?" I exclaimed as we joined the thick crowd and shuffled out through the gilded doors into the corridor. Everything seemed so nice and wonderful. Even the people chattering around us didn't bother me anymore. Jack pulled up his scarf quickly, but I didn't worry about us being noticed. I felt they couldn't touch us, not with their curious glances or their condescending words. We were invincible tonight. We were in a dreamland.

"Oh my God, _Julia_? Fancy seeing you here!"

The dreamland turned into a nightmare.

My whole body froze in unpleasant shock. The sound of that voice…its grating undertone of false excitement. Cara Grant was walking towards me with her soon-to-be-husband, and she was grinning like a shark. She was wearing a gorgeous sleek black dress whose price tag would have probably made me weep.

Jack hadn't reacted to the sudden intrusion, but he was inspecting the couple shrewdly.

I took hold of his arm and muttered, "In about ten seconds you're going to develop a case of scarlet fever and we'll have to dash, okay?"

"Juliaaa," Cara repeated, coming forward with her arms open. "Isn't it so funny running into each other?"

"Hiii, Cara," I said, trying to sound just as excited. Inside, I was punching myself repeatedly.

Her fiancé was clearly not in the mood to chat with the rabble so he stood aside and nodded gruffly at Jack, eyeing his scarf as if it was some kind of controversial religious garb.

"Charlie is such a classical music aficionado, he's trying to convert me too, isn't that right babe?" Cara said emphatically, though she didn't give him room to reply anything to that. She went on about the big donation he had made to the Metropolitan to restore a historic wing that had been in disrepair for the last decade.

"They're going to name it the Charles Goodwin wing hopefully. It has a great ring to it."

I mean sure, he could have donated that money to a worthier cause, but I wasn't going to start an argument about it, so I just hummed and ahhed as if I was terribly impressed.

"Oh, silly me, I forgot to show you, Charlie got me a _second_ engagement ring to go with formal dresses, but I still wear the one we got from your place, because it's so much more simple and classy. His mother, though, she said I ought to have a proper diamond. What do you think, is it too tacky? I know you're an expert on jewelry," she cooed, thrusting her hand in my face. The new purchase was an emerald-cut monstrosity that was bigger than her whole finger, so either Charlie's mother hated her or was playing some kind of practical joke.

"Well, it…er, definitely makes a big impression."

"That's what I said too. Actually, it was part of the Aspen Sloan collection, although I don't go in for celebrity brands, as a rule."

"Who's Aspen Sloan?"

Cara gasped. "Didn't you _see_ her tonight? She was Bruce Wayne's date! I don't know _how_ he snagged her, I mean I know he's filthy rich, but Aspen is in high demand these days…"

Just then, as if summoned by the power of gossip, the billionaire and his supposedly famous date appeared at the foot of the stairs. They were walking towards the entrance hall. Bruce Wayne signaled to Charlie and Cara's fiancé nodded back. They seemed to know each other.

"Oh yes, Charlie and Bruce went to the same boarding school when they were kids. They go way back, right babe?" Cara said importantly.

"I wouldn't put it like that…I don't call him _Bruce_ , we're only distant acquaintances," he amended frostily but with a certain sense of pride too.

I had to fight real hard not to roll my eyes. I kept picturing this guy in bed, snoring with his socks on.

"But enough about us, Julia," Cara said, turning resolutely towards Jack, "who is this mysterious gentleman with you tonight?"

"Um, he's my neighbor," I answered uneasily. _I_ could handle high-school mean girls, but I wasn't so sure about Jack. I'd noticed he'd gone quite stiff next to me. I was glad to see he didn't like our "distant acquaintances" (to take a page from Charlie's book) any more than I did.

"Really? Is he always this quiet?" Cara remarked uncharitably.

I was about to make an excuse about laryngitis and cold weather, when Jack suddenly stepped forward and lowered his scarf. In fact, he took it off completely.

Cara's smug smile froze on her lips.

"Oh my _God_ …"

Her fiancé took a few steps backwards, his eyes going as wide as saucers.

Hell, I think even Bruce Wayne and his supermodel girlfriend turned around and gaped.

* * *

I don't know how we managed to get out of there so quickly, but one minute Jack was advertising his scars for the world to see, and the next he was pulling me down the Metropolitan steps and we were hauling a cab.

I dropped in the backseat like the culprit to a crime. I almost told the cab-driver to floor it. I was still reeling from the shock of the last seconds.

"I can't believe you did that."

Jack hummed. "What? My scarf slipped."

I snuck a glance at him. He didn't seem to regret exposing himself at all. In fact, he was in a better mood than I'd ever seen him. I couldn't help it. I started giggling, and once I did I couldn't stop. It soon turned into full-blown laughter.

Jack indulged me further. "She looked like she was going to have a seizure."

I wheezed. "The way she said _oh my God_ …"

"Like she was praying to the Lord to come down and rescue her," he mouthed off happily.

I buried my head in my lap. "I can't - It was so -"

"But did you get a look at pretty boy _Charlie?_ He was so scared he, uh, wanted to run and leave her behind."

"Stop! I'm going to–" And I rolled down the window because I was convulsing from laughter. The crisp winter air hit my nostrils and made the blood rush into my cheeks.

Even he was laughing now in a genuine, unguarded way and we let the hilarity wash over us because it felt really _good_ to get one up on those people.

"We should use your scars more often," I snickered. "I didn't know they could be that useful."

Jack's expression turned almost sour for a moment, as if a great sobriety had descended on him and I was suddenly worried I'd put my foot in it. It was fine to joke around as long as you didn't cross the limit.

And then, in a very serious schoolteacher voice, he said, "She asked you to her wedding, right? Maybe I'll come out of the cake and give her a surprise."

I _screamed_ with laughter.

The cab driver had to pull over and give us a talking.

* * *

We stumbled out of the cab like a pair of drunks who had wasted the night out instead of going to a wholesome Christmas concert. Given our recent bout of shenanigans, I felt confident enough to lean into him and let his body warm mine. The night was turning a bit chillier than I expected. To my momentary shock, Jack put an arm around my shoulders.

"You're shaking in your boots. Is it the scars?" he asked, still riding the jaunty spirit of our night.

I giggled expansively and leaned my head on his shoulder. "Yes, help! I'm so terrified!"

"Wait till I color them with a sharpie. Then I'll scare the, uh, devil himself."

I chortled and toyed with the hem of his scarf. "Make them a red and green to go with the Christmas spirit."

"You joke, but once you see this Yuletide mug you're gonna run screaming for the cops," he grinned.

I bumped into him playfully. "They'll have to put out the Bat signal!"

"Oho, I think he'd stay home."

"No, he's got to save me from this Christmas monster," I wailed in protestation. We both giggled like crazy.

I could almost feel his breath on my face as he turned his head and said hoarsely, "No one can save you now."

It was meant to be said in humor, but it didn't feel like it. The words descended on us gently like a fog, sobering us by degrees. While our smiles didn't vanish, we grew more introspective as we walked together, his arm still around my shoulders, me leaning against him for warmth.

With the merriment slowly dissipating, our current closeness felt a little strange, like a put-on show. I didn't know if I should move away, if he'd feel insulted or relieved. I knew that I enjoyed his company and his proximity, that he smelled nice, that it was the holidays, and that I wasn't alone for once. I hoped he felt the same.

We were almost round the corner to our block when I asked him quietly, "Why were you staring at me during the concert?"

He didn't answer me at first. His grip loosened a little, but he still held me to him tentatively.

"Your face…was a good anchor, for the noise. A good… focus point."

I nodded, having expected as much. Yet the answer didn't entirely satisfy me. But to my surprise, he continued.

"And I liked watching you. You were happy. I haven't seen happy people in a while."

I didn't know what I was feeling then and there, except I knew that I had to externalize it in some way, to show my affection, so I rose on my tiptoes and before I knew what I was doing, a pressed a small kiss to his scars.

Some moments in life go very fast and they're over before you know it, but this one seemed to play in slow motion. It seemed to last much longer than the seconds it was comprised of. My lips made contact with his jagged skin and time stopped for several beats as I felt the abrasive, sharp quality of his scars and the pain and the softness underneath.

His whole body stilled, as if I'd hit him somewhere that hurt very much. But he didn't _look_ hurt. He stared down at me with a strange intensity. His eyes were too black to understand what was going on behind them.

"Why did you do that?"

"Because I wanted to." And then I felt the need to add, "I wanted to thank you…for tonight."

He nodded absently, though his eyes kept scouring me, as if trying to find a missing link. As if he _needed_ something from me. I felt a shiver of familiar fear run down my spine and I stepped away from him. Almost simultaneously, he let go of my arm.

"You're welcome."

He didn't sound upset, but he didn't sound pleased either. We both walked to our building with our hands in our pockets, staring at the ground.

It started snowing.

* * *

 _A/N: thank you all for your reviews, they make writing this story such a treat! I hope you enjoyed this chapter and yes, things are heating up._


	13. Chapter 13

_A/N: trigger warning in this chapter for allusions to rape._

13.

People talk about Post-Christmas Blues, but you couldn't really tell it was January at _Gracie's_. The first few days into the year, people were shopping like it was the beginning of the holiday season. The Christmas lights were still up, and we were still wearing the reindeer hats, whether we liked it or not. I knew from experience that this would carry on for a few more days because people have a hard time letting go of the good times. We'd rather live in a perennial winter wonderland. That's what Michael Bublé keeps singing about, anyway.

I had a lot to think about, if I was being honest. The weather was perfect for long bouts of meditation, and I could tune out the customers' stories about having to return a perfectly good ashtray because Uncle Whatshisname had quit smoking and was insulted by the gift.

It was hard to tell where my life was going at the moment. I thought I was pretty well-set with this job and my uneventful existence, but things had become complicated since Jack. I wanted to do more. Perhaps he was a catalyst for my new outlook on life. It had taken a lot of courage for him to take me to the concert, and if he could face his fears, maybe I could too. I was thinking of maybe enrolling in online classes and setting up a portfolio to send to an Art school. It was all hypothetical and pretty vague, but at least I was considering it.

Whenever we had a small lull in the post-holiday shopping, I'd try out some sketches of Jack and the way his face looked that night. He'd laughed without restraint and care and his scars had seemed a natural part of him, not a grotesque addition. I'd drawn his scars before, but they had always been empty of meaning because I was reducing him to his disfigurement. Now, I had an idea. I had a whole person in mind and I wanted to paint that wholeness.

So I thought back to our conversation that night. I got an idea to paint his scars red and green, to go with our Christmas joke. I wanted to capture that one moment where we were walking in the cold and laughing and there was the strange feeling that nothing could hurt us, that we were invincible.

Each day after work, I'd attempt to recreate that feeling in my drawing. And as I was getting closer to an actual portrait, I felt nervous about how it would turn out. Would I show it to Jack? Would he like it or feel used? Would it make him happy, or would it hurt him in some way?

I was thinking about the portrait when the call came at work.

Stacy handed me the phone.

"It's for you."

She had a troubled look on her face, but I blamed it on the army of shoppers that were filling up the store in mid-January.

"Hello?"

"Hi, this is Nurse Colton from Mercy Vale. We've been trying to reach you for a while. Your mother is in the hospital and she's not doing so good. You need to come out here as soon as possible."

* * *

I don't remember what I did after that. I think I put the phone down. I think I grabbed my coat and bag, muttered something to Stacy who said she'd cover for me and left the store without making any other excuses. I think I walked through the front doors but I might've climbed down the emergency exit. I might have left my coat behind, because I was shivering as I ran down the street.

I couldn't tell you exactly, the next hours were a blur.

I did leave Jack a written message and slipped it under his door. I don't remember what I wrote and possibly what I scribbled was unintelligible, but I felt he'd understand either way.

At one point I got a paper cut across my palm – I _think_ it was a paper cut, maybe from the note I'd left Jack – and I had to press a napkin to my bleeding hand as I waited for the bus to take me out of Gotham. I was bleeding, I was hurting. I wanted to throw up. But most of all, I wanted to scream at my mom for doing this.

I found out through intermittent calls that it was a bad case of alcohol poisoning, which, combined with a low immune system led to severe pneumonia. She was in a coma. I'd always thought when I was a kid that my mother's bottles of gin would end up killing her, but she always managed to control her drinking, she always danced right on the edge of complete destruction.

But she was getting older. And thirstier, I imagined.

She'd been in the hospital for a few days now without them having any knowledge of her contacts. She'd come in without any means of identification. She was found in the back of a liquor store, lying on the floor between crates and dust bunnies, cradling a pack of cigarettes and a roll of coupons she'd recently clipped. The owner thought she was sleeping.

My home town wasn't small enough that everyone knew our name, so it took them a while to reach me. But even if it had been a small town, Mom was not the type to make friends and socialize and she would've alienated even the most tolerant of folks. In her own way, she was fiercely independent, which is a feature I might have inherited. But her independence was cut short by addiction and then she had to rely on me for her needs.

I hadn't sent her a Christmas card this year. I only wired her some money to hold her through January. I didn't even call.

As I sat on the bus and watched the flat plains covered in snow rush past me, I tried to gauge my emotions. I didn't feel guilty. I mostly felt numb, like I was packed in that snow and frozen inside. I hadn't called to check in on her, but I hardly ever did because well, she only rang me up for money and I was happy to leave her alone. It was our idea of a mother-daughter relationship. Illness didn't change that, did it?

* * *

Mercy Vale Hospital was small and clearly underfunded. They had one lousy vending machine that didn't work and the cafeteria was closed for renovations. I bought some coffee from across the street.

I went in to see her. I thought I'd find a completely altered version of my mom, someone I wouldn't recognize. But it was exactly her. The tubes and needles and white robe didn't change her at all. It almost looked like she belonged here. The bruises under her eyes, the marks across her arms, the split lip and dry, peeling skin didn't tell me the story of a different woman. This was as herself as she'd ever be. She was a wreck, but she was still beautiful in her own way. The prettiest girl in her school, back in the day. The fact that she was Mexican never bothered anyone, because she acted whiter than most of her classmates and spoke better English. She wrote saccharine poems for each 4th of July and wore a sparkling skirt with the American flag on it and denied that she had anything to do with those "lazy immigrants down south". She had dark, creamy skin and soft brown eyes, but she thought she was as blonde as Claudia Schiffer. She had a certain mad allure about her, like you could take her for a drive and expect her to turn the wheel so you'd crash into a tree. Some people are drawn to that. My dad, for instance, whom I never met. All I know was that he was one of the many high school boys she fooled around with, but he left town and went to college soon after, and I don't think he ever even knew about me. His family might've gotten wind of it, but they didn't want to spoil their son's future so chances are, they didn't tell him. Mom never contacted him afterwards, as far as I knew. She was still proud back then, didn't want anyone's help.

I'd never bothered to find out who he was, mainly because it didn't seem to matter.

But I was thinking about it now. I was thinking about the father I'd never met and what a relief it would be if he were here to take care of mom instead.

I went shopping for some toiletries and I bought her a new set of clothes too. I didn't have a fortune to spend, so I couldn't get her nice things, but I did my best. She wouldn't have got me nice things either. I don't think my mother hated me or anything like that. I just think she never really wanted me in her life, although like most young girls, she'd had a certain fantasy about a family and babies. In her fantasy, however, the babies were mostly an idyllic accessory to a life that was entirely her own. I could respect that. Her dislike of me was innocent – she was a young woman who'd been saddled with some really poor merchandise and she couldn't exchange it for something better. I didn't feel sorry for myself. I didn't feel sorry for her either.

I mostly felt angry that she'd pulled a stunt like this. I felt that she'd planned it in some way, that she'd deliberately tried to cause trouble for herself and me. _Why can't you handle your drinking? Be a responsible drunk, you old bitch_ , I wanted to say out loud. I also wanted her to see the new socks I'd gotten her. I wasn't really handling this very well.

She wasn't getting any better, despite all the fluids they were pumping in her.

Two days later, I crossed the street to get some food, and when I came back, there was no mom anymore.

She was dead.

* * *

She died in my absence, to spite me. She waited for me to go get some lunch and then she winked at the ceiling and told God "okay, the coast is clear, let's give the idiot a run for her money". Mom loved to do shit like this. She loved surprises. She was a spontaneous creature. I only got to briefly grip her thin wrist before they disconnected her from the machines and pulled the sheet over her head. I think I was checking for a pulse, even though she was clearly gone.

Her face didn't look serene in death. She was the same defiant asshole I'd always known. She wasn't about to apologize for anything. She died like it was her right to do it.

So I just sat there and watched her do it. I imagined her soul ascending, getting stuck somewhere in the clouds, asking for permission to get into heaven, being denied, and then – and then reaching out for an imaginary phone to call me and help her out with this small bump in the road.

"Julia, get me into heaven, will you? Don't be an ungrateful child."

I didn't get her into heaven. I was an ungrateful child.

* * *

I hadn't expected to be back in my home town for a funeral. I thought I'd have fixed this problem by Monday. I thought I'd leave Mom to her drinking and it would all be the same.

I didn't have money for a good casket or even a proper service. I had to rely on the church funds. Apparently, Mom had contributed to the Presbyterian, three dollars a month for the last ten years. It was news to me. I found out she actually gave money to lots of random places that didn't hand out a receipt. It was usually the money _I_ sent her. Before you think mom was being kind and charitable, I should remind you she just wanted to look like she _had_ money to spend.

The pastor told me he'd give me service at half-price and I could probably get one of the used caskets from storage "for a bargain". He smiled a lot and patted my back and told me I was a good daughter. He asked me how many people I wanted to invite to the funeral and I said "would anyone come?"

Two other people did. The guy who owned the liquor store where she was found. He felt responsible in some way, and he said he'd seen her around town. Mom was clever, in that she changed her drinking spots a lot so people wouldn't start butting their noses in.

The second person was Nurse Colton, since we did the service at the hospital for convenience's sake.

The lot she was buried in was crammed between a chicken farmer and a local seamstress. I chuckled privately about that. Mom would've perceived it as a great insult to her name. She wanted to be buried with the rich and famous, and she thought anyone working with their hands was a brainless hick.

"Here lies Esmeralda Florres, a hearty woman who lived her life to the full. She will be remembered as a fighter," the pastor said.

Yeah, right. She was forty-two. How good of a fighter are you if you give up so soon?

* * *

I bought a bottle of gin in her honor and nursed it on the bus back home. I'd spent a total of six days in my home town and I was coming back with no family to my name.

I had to return in a month to deal with the small shack where she lived. It wasn't exactly sellable, but I had to get rid of it somehow. Maybe set it on fire.

When I was a kid, we lived in my grandparents' house after they died. It wasn't much, but it was cozy and clean and there was a beautiful altar of La Virgen de Guadalupe in the living room and family photos of old, sunny relatives stacked up against the vanity mirrors. Mom sold it after I moved out for school. I got into Gotham High on financial aid. At age fourteen I was supposed to live in a dorm room with four other girls, alone in that big city. At the time, I'd asked Mom to move out with me and find a job in Gotham. It could've been a new beginning for us. She was quick on her feet when she was sober. She was very easy on the eyes too, so she'd get a lot of tips. But she decided to sell our childhood home and stay put instead. The house now belonged to a white family who'd probably thrown the altar away. Mom sent me some money from the sale, but the bulk of it went God knows where.

That was another thing. I had to find out how many people she'd been giving money to these past few years. The Presbyterian Church was just one. The guy who owned the liquor store, Mr. Blackwell, told me that the day before she died, she'd made a purchase from his store and she'd bragged about sending a big check in the mail.

But that was a mystery to be solved another fucking time.

I brought the bottle to my lips and forgot about everything.

* * *

In retrospect, getting drunk on a bus was not a great idea, even for someone whose mom had just died. I rarely drank the heavy stuff, only settling for beer, so gulping half a bottle of low-price gin was like soaking myself in acid. I felt hot and dizzy and nauseous, but most of all I felt like I was about to take a long nap and never wake up from it. Which was how Mom ended up six feet under in the first place, right?

I managed to get off at the right stop, but the driver had to give me a hand to climb down the stairs. He shook his head at me like he knew just what my type was. I wanted to scream at him that he had the wrong Florres.

I was supposed to switch buses so I could reach my neighborhood. Gotham looked as it usually did, stark and unyielding. It really didn't care about your petty grievances. I saw petals blooming on the edge of my vision, small dark spots that would probably grow bigger. I had to hurry to get home.

I didn't notice them following me until I was already on the second bus, holding my head in my hands. There was too much noise around me. Every sound was like a loud bang, like several explosions going off at the same time.

They started sniggering and calling me names, trying to draw me out of my stupor. The catcalls didn't faze me, until one of them leaned forward and grabbed my hair.

I raised my head in confused alarm.

They were younger than me by a few years, but they looked like trouble. There were only four of them, wearing baggy jeans and large hoodies and fake chains, pretending they were gangsters when they were just your average white kids on the block. Still, they had a certain slant in their eyes, like a blank void. A lot of kids in bad neighborhoods shut off their conscience at one point because it gets too hard. I could understand that. But they wouldn't understand me.

"Yo, she's so shitfaced, you can do anything to her."

"Nah, man, I like a little struggle. Look at her, she's a fucking potato sack."

"So what? Potato sack ain't good enough for your dick?"

On and on it went, this bizarre graphic conversation about my body and what they'd do to it, while I was sitting there, in that bus, terrified and yet half-asleep. Like someone underwater who has stopped struggling to reach the surface.

When the bus stopped they pulled me out with them, one hand around each arm. I tried to set my heels in, but all I did was scuff my shoes. From the outside, we probably looked like a merry group, because the driver sure didn't say anything.

I vaguely recognized some of the buildings we were walking by, although _walking_ was saying a lot. I was floating. We all have this dream of flying without the aid of machines or vehicles. Just spreading your hands and legs and having the innate power to lift yourself from the ground. We've all woken up in the morning with the regret of gravity. This was that...except it made you realize why we _didn't_ fly, why our bodies _needed_ gravity. We weren't supposed to leave earth behind.

One of them started fondling my breasts. "Damn, she's got a pretty good rack."

I groaned and tried to move away from his stabbing fingers, but I only ended up getting closer to another boy who leered at me crudely and pressed his sticky mouth to my cheek. His breath stank of rancid cheese and cigarettes.

I don't remember his tongue.

I fell down in the gutter, hitting my knees against hard cement. What happened to them was a lot worse.

Through the dark flowers at the edge of my vision, I could see the commotion. It looked like an angry dance.

When you watched a fight in real time, it all seemed really slow somehow. As if each blow was traveling through water. Their bodies fell and rose, like waves on the ocean. I heard a jaw crack, bones splintering.

I blinked fast, I wiped my eyes.

One of the kids' mouths was so full of blood, it was spilling down on the pavement like a broken water pipe. Another one was cowering in a fetal position against the wall, holding his hands over his head. The third one lay with his face in the dirt, crying out in agony as Jack pressed his boot on his spine.

The fourth one had run away across the street but I could see from a distance that he was limping.

Jack moved in a continuum. When one of them tried to get up, he'd put them down swiftly, with angry, feral growls.

I screamed, but the sound was garbled nonsense.

"Jack…Jack, stop. You're…"

He was pummeling one of them in the face while he was crying out for help. _Begging_ , to be exact.

I managed to stand up.

"Jack! Stop! _Jack_!"

He looked up at me, mid-violence. His fist was black with blood. His eyes were white with electricity.

"You're going to kill them!"

They were sniveling at his feet, choking on their own fluids. One of them had peed his pants and the smell was sharp in the air.

"Stop," I repeated, staring at the strange white beads strewn on the alley floor. I later realized they were teeth.

He looked like a killing machine just then. One that had been trained for this specific task.

I was afraid of him, and I was still drunk and I wanted to flee.

But when he came up to me and put a bloody finger on my chin and lifted my head up, I saw his scars in the dark, and they were a strange comfort. They reminded me he was Jack, my neighbor, my friend. We had laughed together at Christmas. We played chess and watched movies and he made great meatballs. The scars proved he was that man, and he was human and he wouldn't hurt me.

"Come on…let's get you inside," he said calmly, as if the bodies lying on the ground had not been put there by him. I buried my head in his shoulder. I didn't want to look at what he'd done anymore.

* * *

 _A/N: I wanted to say I'm really touched by all your lovely reviews and I'm glad more of you have discovered this tiny story. I know this chapter was a lot, in terms of emotional baggage, but I hope you enjoyed it. I'm sorry if there are any errors, I'm dead tired as usual. Next chapter will be strictly Jack/Julia because they have a lot to work through. The detail about Julia's mother sending out money will come back in the future and you should also keep a lookout for the portrait Julia is doing (the way she's coloring the scars too). Drop me your thoughts if you can!_


	14. Chapter 14

14.

"This is not how you leave a note," he said bluntly, slamming a piece of paper in front of me. It was smeared with blood which was dried up in tiny flakes that looked like insects. I stared at it for a few moments. It had my writing on it.

Oh. I remembered now. The note I'd slipped under his door before I left town.

 _My mom is sick. Will return soon. Julia._

The message was only half-intelligible. My hand must have been shaking. And the blood…oh shit, that's how I got that paper-cut. It all made sense now. And as everything clicked in my head, I felt dimly guilty about the blood. I should've washed my hands before I dropped him the note.

Jack could see the thought process going on in my head. I wasn't in a state to hide anything from him.

"I don't care about the, uh, blood, Julia. But you scared the _shit_ out of me."

I stared up at him in shock. I'd never thought about that – I _couldn't_ picture Jack scared. Sure, he had to cope with debilitating trauma and anxiety, but that feral fear that our reptilian brain emitted in the face of danger, that kind of fear seemed to avoid him entirely. I blinked for several moments.

"You give me a note stained in blood and then you disappear," he added, shuffling towards the stove where the kettle was whistling.

It was kind of funny, all this mention of blood. His knuckles were still raw with it, the skin peeled off. He'd wiped his hands on a piece of cloth, but they still looked fresh out of a carnage. I cleared my throat. "We should disinfect that."

"Later," he mumbled, pouring two generous mugs of tea. It was chamomile.

He passed me an aspirin too. I felt so grateful all of a sudden that I wanted to cry. It was very likely I would, given my half-drunk state.

He'd been scared for me.

Jack sat down opposite me, cracking me open with those black eyes, challenging me out of my stupor.

I opened my mouth but only some very sad noises came out.

"What did you say?"

I wiped my nose quickly. "I said this is a nice kitchen."

He raised an eyebrow. "You've been in it before. So. Your mom."

I swallowed the aspirin and took a gulp from the mug. The tea burned down my throat in comforting pain.

"Dead," I croaked.

"I figured," he replied in what I felt was a cruel tone, but then added, "I'm sorry."

I cracked a smile. "Not your fault, is it?"

"Whose fault, then?"

I shook my head. "I guess hers. She didn't take care of herself very well."

What I wanted to say was _mine, my fault. I didn't take care of her very well._

Jack stared into his tea. "You sent her money regularly."

It wasn't a question. He'd noticed that, huh? I shrugged helplessly, as if money had nothing to do with this. But it did. All things did. I remembered suddenly that there was the issue of my mom sending strange sums to a stranger. It fell on me to figure that shit out. I felt so exhausted, yet I couldn't picture closing my eyes and falling asleep. I was afraid I'd waste away, like her.

I peered at Jack. "Is your mom alive?"

Jack stared at his knuckles. "Drink your tea. And afterwards…we clean up."

I sniffed myself gingerly and realized I reeked of gin and sweat. I kind of wanted to keep this smell on me. Once I removed it, I'd remove my mother from me too. I wondered if I'd ever be able to drink alcohol again.

I brought the mug to my lips and drank until my teeth hurt.

"Hey," I said after a pause, a few drops of tea dribbling down my chin. "How did you find me?"

He wiped the sheen of sweat on his forehead. "I run, remember?"

Oh yeah, he jogged at night. Why didn't I think of that?

"You're, uh, lucky I was in the area," he said grimly.

I rubbed my chin absentmindedly, still thinking about it. The bus had dropped me off in the vicinity of my neighborhood, but it almost felt like Jack had been watching out for me, like he was some kind of fucked-up Batman, sitting on a rooftop, ready to come down and rescue me.

The image was hilarious to me, so I started laughing. And once I did, I couldn't stop. I laughed with tiny hiccups, my chest heaving, and it felt like crying.

Jack rose and walked to me and pressed his fingertips into my shoulder, as if testing the bone. He tipped my chin up. "Come on."

* * *

I poured sanitary alcohol over his knuckles. I cleaned the bruises as well as I could. There were tiny pebbles embedded in the flesh. We stood over the sink together as I did my work. The plastic mirror mocked us. We looked like corpses.

His hands were soft and pliable in mine, even though he had used them to beat the shit out of a bunch of teenagers. I had thought he was going to kill them, but I could see now he would've stopped…eventually.

Or maybe he wouldn't have, but I didn't have the wherewithal to debate this with him. In my pitiful state, I wanted to feel good about myself. He'd made them suffer for me. They deserved it.

Our shoulders and elbows kept bumping as I maneuvered his hands.

"Most of our relationship," I began all of a sudden in a rather formal voice, "consists of us patching each other up."

Jack's jaw creased slightly, his scars rippled. "You could say that."

He moved away from me and turned on the shower. "Get in."

I'd never taken a shower with someone before, but this was evidently what we were doing. There was no implication in his voice that there was anything inappropriate about it. It was, in fact, necessary. His eyes said, "I don't trust you to handle yourself right now".

And he was kind of right. I was weepy and drunk.

We undressed sedately, like we were in a dream. He helped me get out of my jeans, which seemed an impossible task to achieve on my own. My fingers kept slipping when I tried to pull the zipper down. He pulled it for me. He yanked each leg as I rested one hand against the wall. His hands skimmed the clammy skin of my thighs. His touch was clinical, but not anonymous. It was definitely him touching me.

He turned me around and unhooked my bra. He didn't fumble, he did it with precision. He pried the straps away from my shoulders. I put my hands over my breasts, but he wasn't looking in that direction anyway. He pulled down my panties and I walked out of them quickly, like they weren't mine. He did all of this with his usual stony mien, like it was all the same to him. He had peeled me down to my bare skin but there seemed to be little intimacy in the gesture. He was handling me like a child. And that's what I needed at the moment.

He slunk out of his clothes with the dexterity of a soldier. His body, I noted, was lean but also run-down, as if he was a vintage car you didn't see on the streets anymore. He had pocked little scars on his legs and his abdomen and I identified them as battle wounds. He wasn't built like the yuppy guys who frequented the gym, his muscles weren't bulging out; they were hidden weapons. He was skinny and tough as grit…and you could be drawn to this body, you could even worship it. You could be repelled by it too.

I was neither. Or maybe both.

We clambered into the shower together. Our naked bodies bumped into each other and it felt cold and electric. Like that frisson you get when the wind picks up and it's tickling the back of your neck. That's how it was.

Our toes touched, our knees grazed. The split ends of my hair kept whipping his stomach. The air between us was made of flesh.

I still hadn't properly looked down to see his penis. His eyes never strayed to my nether region, so I wanted to return the courtesy.

But I couldn't pretend I hadn't caught its shape. It was there. This mysterious object that belonged to him which I could ignore, if I wanted to. I could also brush up against it, if I wanted to.

It gave me a strange sense of power.

I closed my eyes as he poured shampoo in my hair. His soapy hand rested briefly on my scalp, then glided down to my nape and settled between my shoulder blades. It was the softest he'd ever touched me and yet it felt like a slap.

He removed his hand and started lathering himself. I stood with my back to him and did the same. Often times, I felt his chest so close that I could lean back and rest myself there. If I got dizzy, I knew he'd catch me and put his arms around me. But I didn't. I washed my hair and my body and I thought of nothing.

* * *

He gave me a soft cotton T-shirt and a pair of shorts. I was eager to get dressed, because our nakedness outside the shower was something too incongruous to bear. Like a live wire. Like Adam and Eve after being kicked out of paradise.

I was in his bedroom for the first time ever. I don't know what I'd imagined, but it was just as tidied up and inconspicuous as the rest of the apartment. There were books and magazines piled into stacks in the corners – his weakness for tabloids– but they didn't make the room seem disorderly. The bed occupied most of it, since it was an extra-large one. I would've called it queen-size but maybe it was larger. From the crumpled sheets and the beaten-down pillows, I got the sense that he needed the space to move. He probably tossed and turned a lot and fought imaginary wars in his dreams.

There was a small nightstand next to the wall and on it a digital clock that emitted a soft nightlight. There was no other light source in the room, except for the windows whose thick curtains were drawn.

I sat down on the bed, crossing my legs.

Jack was getting dressed standing in front of the wardrobe. We were in semi-darkness. I could hardly see his face.

"How are your hands?" I asked, because the silence was like a bug crawling down my spine.

"Swollen," he replied coolly.

"Should I get you some ice from the fridge?" My voice sounded wheedling and annoying to my ears and I didn't know why.

"Don't bother."

Jack came round and plopped down on the bed. I felt the weight on the mattress. He put a pillow behind his back. He stared at me.

I turned around and hugged my knees to my chest. What were we doing anyway? Were we going to bed? What was this?

I felt like leaving, but my body was too heavy for any decisive movement. I was glad I wasn't alone, but his company wasn't soothing me. And perhaps that's the raw truth about people; they can be there with you, but they can't replace your feelings or make them go away.

"God," I muttered, wiping a few tears from the corner of my eye, "I gotta stop crying. I wasn't even close to her. I don't think I ever loved her."

Jack cocked his head to the side. "Sure you did."

I stared at his bare calves, the elegant flute of his ankle. He had beautiful legs.

"How do you know?" I demanded. "She was a complete fuck-up. I had to be in charge of her all the time."

"That's why you loved her," he shrugged.

"No."

"Yeah," he insisted lazily. "You loved her _because_ she was so, uh, unfit. Because she never offered you what you needed."

"That sounds like bullshit," I bit back, weakly. I felt like he was peeling my clothes again.

Jack's scars rippled. It almost looked like he was smiling. "We love fuck-ups. They make us feel better about ourselves. Make us feel needed."

"I don't want to feel needed," I grumbled.

"You're desperate for it. You want to be someone's _whole_ world," he enunciated carefully, without stuttering. "We all do."

I gripped my knees and stared down at the sheets hatefully.

"It's okay," he said quietly. "It's okay to want that."

I crawled up to him wearily and he opened his arm an inch. Under normal circumstances, I would have been overwhelmed by the proximity, but I was operating on autopilot. I settled in the crook of his arm and put my head on his chest. It felt normal, it felt like something we always did.

He breathed into my hair, which was still damp, and his hand settled on my lower waist.

It was good to be held, even if everything about it felt so fragile.

I drew shapes into his T-shirt with my finger. His heartbeat ricocheted against my eardrum.

"Am I a fuck-up like my mom?"

Jack snorted, his chest rising. "Now you're fishing."

"Be honest."

He pinched my skin through the T-shirt. "You're a lot of, uh, things, but not that."

I could be okay with that assessment. I laid my hand flat on his stomach. It felt like touching stone, he was so taut. But if it was stone, it was a crumbling temple. He tensed imperceptibly.

"Why did you beat up those guys so bad?"

"They were going to harm you."

"Yeah, but…you knocked their teeth out. It felt a little much."

There was a pause in which I could hear his heartbeat steadily increasing. Like the ticking of a bomb. When he spoke, his voice was slightly muffled. "I wanted to harm them. I, uh, liked it."

I raised my head and stared at his scars. "You did?"

His grip on my waist tightened. "Yeah. When I saw they touched you, I let it go."

"What did you let go?" I almost stage whispered.

"My restraint," he said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

I inhaled sharply and the air hurt my nostrils.

Maybe it was natural. I felt my own restraint ebbing away. I leaned forward and touched his jaw. His scars furrowed.

"Julia," he said my name like a warning. _Turn back now,_ he was saying. His eyes looked like two bottomless pits.

I couldn't recall the last time he'd said my name, if ever.

"My mother's dead and I don't want to think about it."

I leaned forward and pressed my lips to his mouth. His scars scratched me. They welcomed me.

* * *

 _A/N: I'm possibly evil for leaving you on this cliff-hanger, but you'll get to read about the kiss pretty soon! Thank you for all your reviews and support, it's always such a comfort._


	15. Chapter 15

15.

This must have happened to you, or a variation of this: you were seven or eight and you scraped your knees. You didn't know how it happened; often you didn't even feel it. You fell a lot, but not because you were clumsy. You just propelled your body forward and you didn't care for obstacles. The skin of your shins always broke. It broke so easily. And in the first few moments when you saw the red bubbling, you bent down and you put your mouth to it. You licked the blood and tried to soothe the inexplicable wound. It made you feel okay, even if later, you were told you were not helping.

I kissed Jack, but I don't know if I soothed an inexplicable wound. I kissed him because, like that kid that used to be me and you, I wanted to make it feel okay – myself and him and everything.

I placed my lips against his scars and they felt like hot gravel in summertime, the gravel where I scraped my knees. I kissed the web of pockmarked skin, thorny and soft at the same time, my mouth connecting with his unfinished mouth in a clumsy, undignified manner.

I was trying to find a footing, but maybe I wasn't meant to. There were gaps at the corner of his mouth, places where a blade must have cut deep. I slid my tongue there, and his hand sank in my hair, dragging me forward. My scalp burned. His tongue dragged me back and forth. The trauma of his skin was erotic in a way that eluded sexuality. It felt like entering someone's body without penetration. I gripped his face and kissed him harder, as if to punctuate this feeling. He groaned into my mouth, a heavy sound of wanting and regret. He took my lower lip between his teeth and my tongue snaked across his broken Cupid's bow.

Before I knew what was happening, I was on my back and my head connected with the mattress.

Jack had rolled us over. He stood over me for a moment, contemplating what he had under him. His gaze was clinical, but personal, a combination I had learned to identify with him.

I trusted him in some obscure way. Not fully, but enough to let whatever was happening happen.

His hand was suddenly on my jaw, tilting my head up. His thumb pressed down on my chin, making my lips part. He was staring at my mouth. It was probably red and raw from the kiss. Maybe he enjoyed seeing it like that, or maybe he just wanted to look at a mouth that was had not been torn apart.

I parted my lips wider until his thumb was almost in my mouth, the salt of his skin on my tongue.

There might have been a catch to his breath, but I wouldn't know, because in the next moment he lowered his head and his scars grazed the side of my jaw. He was kissing, or rather, marking the side of my neck, the jagged wires of his mouth cutting me slowly. There was something chilling in it, like an animal's claw, caressing lovingly, but always with the notion that it could rip you to ribbons. His tongue slid down the length of my aorta. My thighs clenched irrationally. It was a small agony to keep breathing while his teeth worried over my pulse.

I raised my hand to his head and touched the back of his neck. It felt warm and alive. He'd let his short hair grow and the locks tickled my knuckles. All at once, I felt an unbridled need to sink my hand in his hair. Nothing else would do. I wanted to know what it was like. I gently parted the locks at the base of his skull, threading my fingers upwards hesitantly. Jack groaned into the hollow of my collarbone, a sound of torment.

I retracted my hand by degrees, but he muttered something close to my ear. His scars chafed against my earlobe and my body arched up unconsciously.

"Don't stop," he said, almost matter-of-fact, but so repressed that I knew the admission was difficult for him.

I sank my fingers in his hair once more, and he searched my mouth for another fragmentary kiss. His mouth seized mine and held it there, as if he wanted to borrow my skin. I could let him. Without realizing, I started tugging at his locks in time with his movements. As his torso brushed against mine and our bodies came into closer contact, my fingers weaved more anxiously through his locks. The friction was strange, almost negative, but thrilling. Like tangling yourself in live-wire.

I was ready to take off the T-shirt he'd lent me. I wanted no layers between us, but when he noticed my hand was pulling at the hem, he pinned it down with a grunt.

I tilted my head with a question, interrupting our kiss, but before I could ask, his own hand was cupping my breast over the T-shirt and he suddenly lowered his head. He put his mouth on my breast, right against the fabric.

I gasped. The sensation was startling. Torturous, even. The cotton chafed against my nipple as his tongue swirled around it. The fact that his mouth wasn't directly on my skin made it more erotic somehow. There was only a thin barrier between us, growing wet with his saliva, almost invisible…but still there. I threw my head back and groaned, wishing he would just pull the damn thing over my head –

But he didn't.

He moved away from the T-shirt. His knuckles grazed the side of my waist, all the way to my thigh. His head nestled on the flat of my stomach. His lips hovered over my lower abdomen and his fingers hooked into my shorts and pulled on the elastic.

I felt like I should _say_ something, but words were hard to come by. He didn't give me much time.

The shorts glided down my knees too quickly. He had barely discarded them when his nose nuzzled against my slit and I felt his warm breath all the way inside me and I closed my eyes.

He parted my folds with his tongue and his mouth latched on my clit, all in one staggering breath. Half of my body rose into his mouth and I seized. He waited for me to _feel_ them – his scars – rubbing against my nub. I moaned and clenched my thighs around his shoulders. He sucked and flicked his tongue almost lazily; he knew what he was doing. He knew the coarseness alone was enough to get me off.

God, it was true. The feeling of his scars against my cunt was blasphemous. His fucked-up mouth was perfect for this. I rubbed myself against his abrasions; I got off on his disfigurement. I wanted to cut his face deeper, just so he could fuck me harder with it.

"Fuck – _Jack_ –I'm gonna –"

And he grinned, stretching his scars wider.

I stuttered and came with a harsh, animal groan, shattering against his mouth.

* * *

My breath was like a furnace. I stared up at the ceiling in mild shock with myself. I was contemplating the many, _filthy_ ways we get our kicks. I never thought someone's trauma would do it for me.

Jack was watching me, his head still nestled between my thighs. I wondered if he was upset or disgusted with me.

But his eyes regarded me with calm assurance. He licked his lips.

"You were magnificent," he said it almost harshly, and I knew he meant it. There was a hungry echo in his voice, as if he had fed but had not quite satisfied himself.

I understood. I ran my fingers through his locks and pulled him up towards me.

He obliged, raising himself to kiss the side of my mouth. I could taste myself on his lips which gave me a short thrill. I let my hand wander downwards, tracing the rigid planes of his abdomen. I stopped at the seam of his boxers and slipped a finger under the elastic.

Jack grunted. His hand suddenly grabbed mine and slammed it on the bed.

I blinked. Maybe he wanted to be in control. Fine, I'd let him.

I whispered in his ear. "Take them off."

But he shook his head stubbornly.

"I want to," he rasped. "But I can't."

"What? Why?" My body was still thrumming with excess energy. I wanted to feel him inside me. Was that so bad?

"Can't give you what you want," he spoke soft and low against my chin.

"What are you talking about?"

He inhaled sharply. "I, uh, might not stop."

"I don't want you to stop," I mumbled through a fog of lust.

"You're high on it, Julia. But you'll come down eventually."

"Don't patronize me."

He sighed. "I…almost beat some kids to death tonight." His bloody knuckles burrowed into my waist as a reminder. "You don't want me to…let go like that on you."

His restraint. He'd let go of his restraint, he'd said.

"That was _different_. They deserved it. You won't hurt me."

"Won't I?"

My hand gripped his shoulder.

"This is about pleasure, not violence."

He shook his head. "You think I'm gonna be able to, uh, tell the difference?"

"I can handle it," I persevered, maybe foolishly, but I felt oddly invincible in that moment.

"That's exactly what she said too…" he trailed off, his warm hand on my hipbone.

"Who's she?"

"My wife," he replied sourly.

* * *

 _A/N: I know this is a very short chapter, but given the errr...revelation at the end, I felt I should end it here. I've already got most of next chapter written, but I don't want to overwhelm you all at once. I hope you enjoyed this messy chapter, I'm kind of terrible at smut, but thank you so much for your reviews, I'm so thrilled that this story has gained traction. I hope the ride won't disappoint!_


	16. Chapter 16

16.

It's never great to find out earth-shattering information while lying down. Especially if someone's on top of you and their body is effectively pinning yours.

I felt paralyzed. My insides were turning liquid. My head felt like it had been bludgeoned. Everything was spinning uncontrollably, and yet we were both standing very still. It didn't seem right.

His hand palmed the side of my thigh.

"I used to be married. Still am, legally."

My hand twitched on his shoulder and then it slid off him like a dead fish.

"I was going to tell you…" he mumbled, like a schoolboy caught without his homework.

I couldn't say anything.

"I, uh, send her cash occasionally. Just like you used to send your mom."

"My mom," I said finally, as if I'd forgotten all about her. I blinked rapidly. "You have a wife. Present tense."

"Not quite," he said, and my blood pounded in my ears. He sounded _amused_. As if he was regaling me with some great joke.

"Not _quite_? That's not an answer," I gritted through my teeth.

"Believe me…when I came back like _this_ ," he gestured to his face in the dark, "she, uh, cleared the fuck out."

I tried to quell the anger in my voice. "People don't leave each other just like that."

"You'd be _surprised_."

At this point, I guess nothing should have surprised me.

"But…" he trailed off, "in my case it wasn't just the scars, was it?"

He was asking me, as if I knew. And if I really thought about it, I _did_ know. It's just that, at the moment, my mind was caught in a web of infinite complications.

"Nah, wasn't just the scars," he answered for me. "It was _this_. Right here." He seemed to indicate the space between us, our bodies thrown together. A part of me wanted to get out of his grasp, but another part wanted to know what he was talking about. I needed to know.

"Did you hurt her?" My tone was surprisingly level, but my teeth hurt, as if I had bitten down on them too hard.

I noticed, peripherally, that Jack was still absently caressing my thigh, but it wasn't quite a caress. He was holding onto me, as if mooring himself. I felt like my body was a raft in the middle of the ocean, and he was clinging to me. But who did I have to cling to?

"Yeah," he said quickly, crisply. He licked the empty corner of his mouth. "After Afghanistan, I was in the recovery unit for three months. She came to see me once or twice, then stopped coming. When I was finally released home, she, uh, kept her distance. I was a fucking stranger to her. Not the guy she'd married. Not the same face, not the same head either."

I tried to imagine that kind of shock; the wife watching as the bandages were slowly removed from the mutilated face of her spouse. Her jaw must have trembled, and Jack must have noticed.

He paused and hooked one finger into my shorts, playing with the elastic. "Some nights, she wanted to fuck me in the dark. So she wouldn't have to see …" and he pointed at his face. "But my dick wouldn't, uh, work. One of the great perks of serving your country. You can't get it up anymore." He laughed throatily, as if trying to make the bitterness go down easier.

"And she'd sit there…" he continued almost amiably, "trying to get it hard, spitting on it, slapping it, raging at it. Nothing did the trick. Then other nights, what do you know? My dick worked. It worked _too_ well. But the rest of me, uh, _didn't_."

He paused, slapping the elastic against my skin. "I'd fuck her blind. I'd fuck her like she wasn't there. I'd fuck her into the, uh, mattress until she cried and begged me to stop. Sometimes I wouldn't stop."

I heard his words, even understood them, but they felt like a vacuum in my head.

He spoke with precision, as if reciting from a well-worn script. He must have recounted these things to himself many times, must have told them to his therapist. He was trying to sound detached, like the person in the story wasn't him at all. But his hand gripped my thigh and he squeezed and squeezed until my skin turned porcelain white. I winced.

"I was a pathetic little shit…I ranged from impotence to violence. Couldn't help it, couldn't control it. She, uh, finally threw in the towel and kicked me out. No one would blame her, least of all me."

He released my thigh and I almost hissed in relief. My flesh pulsed with pain. He raised his hand above my head. The shadow of his fingers fell over my cheek. He tucked a stray lock behind my ear. The action was gentle, measured, foreign.

"So, like I said…I can't give you what you want. I'd either fuck you till you bled…or I'd be an embarrassment."

I shuddered at the choice of words. I never knew tenderness could be sharp and suffocating. I could already feel the warm river of blood between my thighs, spreading like a wild carnation on his sheets.

He rolled off me, and I was free. He wasn't on top of me anymore. There was no weight on my chest.

I stared up at the ceiling in mute shock. I could feel him and hear him next to me, but he could've been several rooms away.

Neither of us made any sudden moves. I was afraid that if I jumped from the bed, something really bad would happen.

But I felt the worst had already happened.

"Jack," I said at length, hoping his name would give me clarity.

It didn't.

"Don't …say anything," he struggled with the words. He ran both hands over his face. "I know you'll leave tomorrow. For good. But it's, uh…it's not tomorrow yet, so let's sleep."

It was such a quaint invitation. He actually pulled the covers over us, swathing us in warm, unbearable intimacy.

I lay next to him like a rag doll, my tear ducts too empty to muster any more salt water. He held my hand under the covers and I let him. I think I even squeezed his fingers.

* * *

As dawn spilled under his thick curtains, I dreamed of his wife. I dreamed of her heavy, willful body underneath his. Jack had his hands around her throat. Her face was oceanic blue. She was crying softly, and he bent down and kissed away her tears.

"I want to fuck in the dark, so I don't have to see your face," she whispered horribly. And he obliged her. He cupped her cheeks and slammed her head against the bedpost.

Her tears turned to laughter. She laughed demonically. "You can't even _fuck_ me," she kept saying, teeth flashing like knives. "You can't even fuck me."

His cock was soft against her belly. It looked dead.

I gasped in my sleep and Jack pulled me closer to him. Somewhere in the middle of the night, his hand had wrapped around my waist. I squirmed closer to him, inhaling the scent of despair. His breath tickled the back of my neck.

Everything was soft and grotesque.

We both slept for hours. I'd sometimes wake up groggily, see him lying unconscious next to me, and think for one absurd moment, _He's dead._

But no, his chest still rose regularly, and I was relieved. I brushed some stray locks away from his face, and then I dropped back against him, like a stone in a well.

It was late afternoon when I startled awake.

Jack was watching me from his side of the bed. The black of his eyes seemed limned with moonlight. But it wasn't night anymore.

His scars looked terribly sad, but I did not think they were more grotesque than the night before. His confession had not made him uglier. It had left him relatively intact. Maybe that was also sad.

I knew what I was supposed to say. _We had a good time_ , or _Don't hesitate to call me if you ever need help_.

But I had been with him tonight in a way that made those words sound like a betrayal. I had let him do things that couldn't be erased, and I'm not sure I wanted that.

So I inhaled sharply and said, "Breakfast. Breakfast sounds good."

I made it sound as if _he_ had brought it up.

Jack frowned, rubbing the side of his scars into his pillow. "But..."

"I'm hungry," I stated more firmly, clutching the covers to my chest.

"You should go," he said hoarsely.

"I'm craving eggs," I insisted petulantly.

He looked like he wanted to issue another protest, but he didn't seem strong enough. All the air had gone out of him. "How…do you want your eggs?"

The hesitation in his voice was almost childlike. There was disbelief in it too.

"Sunny side up," I replied.

"Toast?"

"Sure."

"Bacon?"

"Not feeling like it."

"Yeah, me neither. Tea?"

"Strong," I instructed.

He nodded and raised himself up on his elbows. His hair was mussed and tangled, like it was a separate entity from his body.

He looked down at me with a curious expression. "And after tea?"

"We eat," I shrugged.

"And after that?"

I didn't have the energy to get up. I sank back into the pillow. Whatever I had learned the night before would have to wait. "Well…we have all day to do nothing."

He rubbed his temples, probably wondering where my own head was at.

"Do nothing, huh?"

I nodded, feeling as heavy as a metal safe box, falling down an elevator shaft. "Nothing at all."

* * *

He brought me breakfast in bed. Well, he carried two big trays and set them directly on the sheets and we ate like absolute pigs. When we were done, there seemed to be egg yolk and toast crumbs everywhere. We licked our fingers and drank our tea noisily. We kept stealing glances at each other.

 _You have a wife_ , I thought to myself. _And she hates you. And she's got a right to hate you._

And still, this didn't make me want to get up and leave. Call me a deviant, call me thick-headed. I'm that and more. My mother had just died for no good reason, and he had hurt his wife. These things somehow went together. Senseless injustice, senseless violence, senseless pain.

We lay back down against the pillows and stared up at the ceiling.

We fell into this torpor, though we did not sleep.

Our greasy fingers sometimes brushed against each other. It was a very large bed, but we found ways to draw nearer. He looked like he wanted to kiss me, but also like the thought itself was enough, like he didn't have to do it. I didn't want to, either. I could just think about kissing him and it would be enough. Doing anything more now would break us.

He had said too much and I had listened too intently.

I suddenly remembered something - or rather, I realized I hadn't asked.

"Any children?"

"Hm?"

"Did you - or _do_ you have any kids together?"

There was a pause, like he was trying to recall. "She got pregnant once, after I returned. But, uh, she got an abortion. She didn't tell me. I found out a few months later."

" _Oh_."

It sounded like another recital, another passage he must have repeated to his therapist.

"It was the smart thing to do," he added.

"It must have hurt, though," I ventured.

"Would've hurt more if my own kid was scared of me," he muttered and closed his eyes against the possibility.

I couldn't imagine Jack with children any more than he could. But - and this thought seized me and made me startle with pain - Jack could've made the kid all his favorite meals. Jack would've loved to cook for his son or daughter.

"Hey...you said we'd do nothing all day," he reminded me with a slight hitch to his voice.

"You're right."

I let it go. I let everything go.

We lay there, contemplating the fact that some arbitrary force had thrown us together.

We did nothing for the entire day.

* * *

 _A/N: This chapter...may have alienated some of you, but I hope not. It was a tough one to write, although I found it necessary. Jack's trauma and the violence behind it is a big part of his character. And it's a big part of many vets' lives. We will find out what caused those scars, at one point. I'm sorry this is rather short yet again, but it was a bit emotionally draining. Thank you so much for your continued support, I hope you follow me into darker corners too._


	17. Chapter 17

17.

You don't think you can return to normal so quickly, but you do. Or at least, you don't have much of a choice.

When Monday rolled around, I couldn't put off going back to work any longer. The floor manager had been sympathetic about my mother's death, but I'd already gotten three days off for the funeral and that was more than enough in her book.

Sometimes corporate was right. The simple act of walking into _Gracy's_ helped reinstate my sense of reality. The weekend had been a stagnant haze of damp sheets, sloppy kisses and whispered confessions. It had belonged to someone else's life. As I sat behind the counter with Stacy and commiserated about my awful week I felt the axis shift back into place. It was easy to make small talk and tell her lies about my mom's "really beautiful" funeral and all the friends who'd come to say goodbye. It was actually a relief to pretend.

This didn't mean that I was going to flat-out _ignore_ reality. What Jack had told me still dwelled inside me. It's just that I'd chosen to compartmentalize it so I could go about my day.

He and I didn't talk about it, but I'd chosen to stay through Saturday and Sunday and it was made clear to both of us that I wasn't _going_ anywhere. We just hadn't verbalized it properly and it would most likely stay that way. Words weren't our forte.

Monday night kept me busy with practicalities. I wrote to the pastor from my home town and asked him to take a few pictures of my mom's old shack and send them via email. I was going to put it up for sale online. I also tried to get into contact with Mr. Blackwell, the guy who owned the liquor store where my mother was found. I wanted to know more about their last conversation before she died. She'd bragged to him about sending a check in the mail and I wondered if he remembered any details.

I knew I'd have to go back there and tie up all these loose ends but I wanted to delay the moment.

I wanted to live in the normal for a while.

* * *

Tuesday night, I showed up at Jack's for the usual home-cooked meal. As if nothing was remiss. I left my shoes in the hallway and padded in my socks towards the kitchen. I was expecting to find him bent over the stove with the apron on, but instead he was wrangling with a colorful array of take-out bags. He'd ordered enough for five people.

"Oh, hey…we're eating Thai?"

Jack turned around with a frown.

"You got something against Thai?"

"No, I just thought you'd be cooking." I was curious about this change in the pattern.

"I don't cook _all_ the time," he pointed out with a small burr in his voice.

"Could've fooled me," I quipped.

He threw me a look.

"I'm fine either way. As long as you're keeping your hands busy." I added the last part in mock-seriousness. I wasn't afraid of Jack, not more than I was before. But I guess I must've been afraid before.

Jack's lips twitched. "I have other ways of keeping my hands busy now."

And before I had time to register the lewd intent behind his words, he was already walking towards me. He had me pinned against the wall in a matter of seconds –he turned me around to face it. My cheek was pressed up against the cool white paint. He was fast, but there were pauses between his movements – as if I giving me a chance to untangle myself, should I wish to. I guess I didn't. He stood behind me, his face in my hair, his loud breath in my ear. I was mesmerized by the quiet intensity.

"This is just to say hello," he murmured in the crook of my neck. Then he slid his hand down into my underwear. Just like that. I gasped because his fingers were cold, but the sensation was a thrilling kind of discomfort. Yeah, he really _knew_ how to keep his hands busy. Two minutes later I was keening against his palm, wishing desperately that I could bite the wall.

"Not yet," he said, mouth latched to my throat, mapping my erratic pulse, knowing he'd succeeded. I wanted to tell him to fuck off, but his thumb was drawing slow circles against my clit and I wanted him to speed it up. I reached down and put my hand over his.

Some other guys don't like to be interrupted.

He welcomed my intrusion. He let me fuck myself with his hand. He let me use it without compunction.

When I came, I screeched through my teeth, wishing I could swallow the sound.

The waves of pleasure left me slumped against his chest. He removed his hands from my underwear slowly. He licked his fingers. Not with gusto, not like he was doing something perverse. He licked them as you'd lick a spoon.

"Let's go eat."

* * *

He was taking ownership, in a way. I'd stayed over the weekend; I hadn't run away in horror. And I kept coming back, which meant something to him. He didn't express it in words, but his gestures were sufficient. He was starved for what I provided, small as it was.

It's true, I hadn't rejected him, but I could still leave. So he was leaving his marks on me, in case I did. I felt flattered and fragile and powerful. I could choose never to see him again.

I felt as if nothing had changed at all, even if everything had.

There was something unspoken between us, a kind of illicit pact, but you wouldn't know it if you looked at us. We sat together, eating greasy Thai food from cardboard containers, talking about things that didn't matter.

I started sleeping there every other night. I had my own toothbrush on the bathroom stand next to his. We ate. We played chess. We watched the occasional movie. He went down on me. I kissed his scars until they were soft. I stroked his cock through his trousers until he made me stop. We each had our parts to play. It was a precarious balance. I didn't want more, I didn't want less. Or maybe that was a lie, but I made myself believe it was the truth.

I didn't want to ask that clichéd, throat-clogging question, "What _are_ we?"

It would only lead to a nasty little inquest about the Future and that was a door without a knob. I didn't want to go through it. I liked that we couldn't be defined so easily. I liked that we weren't boyfriend and girlfriend. I liked that we'd never marry or have kids or even think that far. I liked that we weren't Cara and Charles. Whatever we had was both temporary and limitless in its possibilities.

But you know that saying about all good things.

* * *

A while ago – it felt like ages – I had wanted to draw his portrait. I began in earnest one day. On the rare occasions I spent in my own flat, I tried a variety of poses. I drew Jack as I often saw him in the kitchen with his apron, and I drew him reclining in bed. I didn't like any of the sketches. They were too formal, too studied. I focused on what was above the shoulders. I focused on the shape of his skull, the tender swoop of his neck, his strong, blunt jaw. The scars I saved for last.

I wanted to draw him the way we'd talked during our Christmas date. I wanted to fill up his face with colors: I wanted to capture part of that reckless joy we had felt. Green and red, yuletide and snow.

I didn't tell Jack I was drawing him. I wanted to show him the final product. I wanted him to be proud of me. I wanted him to say, "yeah, that _is_ me." I wanted him to recognize himself.

But sometimes I harbored darker thoughts. Sometimes I erased the corners of his face and made it look outlandish, make it look terrifying. I wanted him to see this side too. I knew he knew it all too well, but I wanted him to see himself through his wife's eyes. I didn't condemn either of them, but I knew there was something unresolved there.

My final drawing of Jack was my best one. I didn't get to keep it. But we're getting ahead of ourselves.

* * *

My landline was practically an artifact from another time. I'd only ever used it to call Mom since she often lost (or sold) the cell phones I bought her. It was late afternoon and I was about to go up to see Jack when the ancient ring startled me so bad that I nearly hit my head against the door. I scrambled back and picked up the phone.

"Hello?"

There was silence, except for the sound of heavy breathing. I thought it might be the pastor.

"Father Gibbons?" I tried. "Is that you?"

Just more heavy breathing. Coming from someone who couldn't get enough air in their lungs. For a wild moment I thought it might be Jack playing a prank.

"Haha, you're very funny," I said. "I'm coming up in a minute. Want me to bring anything?"

The silence stretched on uncomfortably.

"Jack?"

The breathing seemed to change, halt, then start up again. I was about to hang up when I heard a grunt and a whisper which sounded inhuman.

" _Stay away_ ," it rasped. " _Stay away_."

"Stay away from what? Who are you?" I demanded, my voice rising along with my pulse.

" _You don't know..._ " the voice rattled hoarsely.

"I don't know? Tell me then!"

But all I got was the dial tone.

"Hello?"

There was no one there anymore. I put the phone down shakily.

There were many possibilities running through my mind. Maybe Mom had gotten involved with some gangbanger, maybe he'd been blackmailing her, maybe he was calling to collect. But he wouldn't have told me to stay away, would he? He would've told me to send more cash. Anyway, I wasn't sure it was a _he_. Maybe it was someone from the town who'd really hated Mom, someone who didn't want me to get involved. Someone trying to spook me. There were many candidates.

I stubbornly refused to think it had anything to do with Jack.

Even though the voice had only spoken after hearing his name. I thought about bringing it up with him, but when I stepped into his apartment that evening, I felt foolish. Kids pulled prank calls all the time. And maybe it was about Mom after all. She was the sketchy one here. Jack had been off the grid for a while. Who'd be after him, anyway? He still got Army checks in the mail. They knew where he was.

"Anything on your mind?" he queried as we ate our corn cobs.

I licked my lips. "You know, just worried about Mom's house. I still have to go down there and handle it."

"Do you, uh, want me to come with you?"

I looked up, startled. "You would?"

"Sure, why not."

"What about your discomfort with…you know."

Jack laughed with half of his mouth. "I'll wear a hoodie. I'm sure those, uh, small town hicks have seen worse."

He wasn't entirely wrong. I worried my lower lip. "You're always reluctant to leave the house."

"Yeah, but, uh, last time I didn't leave the house, you almost got assaulted."

I bristled at the memory and didn't appreciate him bringing it up. "That's only because I was drunk on my ass. That won't happen again. I can take care of myself."

"I know. But what are pals for?" His voice had a sweet-sardonic lilt that was hard to resist. It would be nice to have someone there to help out. Maybe seeing more of Jack in the outside world would dispel these dark thoughts. He'd shared some painful stuff with me. He'd been honest about his wife and that must've been hard. He would tell me if anything else was wrong.

Yeah, I was an idiot.

* * *

 _A/N: thank you for all your lovely reviews and to the Guest reviewer who asked about whether Julia feels more sympathy for Jack or for his wife, I think she is conflicted and feels bad for both of them equally. But you'll get to read about that in the future. This chapter works as a filler because some big turns in the plot are about to happen soon. And just keep in mind, not everything is as it seems, especially concerning Jack._


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